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STATE  OF  THE  TRADE 


OBSERVATIONS  <  >N 


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1872 


THE 


STATE    OF   THE    TRADE 


OBSERVATIONS  ON 


EIGHT  HOURS  AND  HIGHER  PRICES, 

SUGGESTED  BY  RECENT  CONFERENCES  BETWEEN  THE  NEW- YORK  TYPOGRAPHICAL 
UNION  AND  THE  EMPLOYING  BOOK  AND  JOB  PRINTERS  OF  THAT  CITY. 


BY 

THEO.   L.   DE  VINNE. 


NEW -YORK 
FRANCIS  HART  AND  COMPANY,  12  &  14  COLLEGE  PLACE. 

1872. 


THE  STATE  OF  THE  TRADE. 


ON  the  llth  June,  1872,  the  New  York  Typographical 
Union  made  an  application  to  the  employing  book  and  job 
printers  of  this  city  for  a  conference  as  to  the  expediency  of 
establishing  eight  hours  as  a  day's  work  (at  the  rate  of  $20 
per  week  of  forty-eight  hours)  and  an  advance  of  twenty  per 
cent,  on  the  present  prices  of  piece-work. 

This  application  was  made  in  strict  conformity  with  the 
agreement  made  between  employers  and  employed  in  April, 
1869,  by  which  each  party  bound  itself  to  confer  with  the 
other  concerning  all  matters  of  disagreement,  and  in  case  of 
irreconcilable  difference,  to  give  thirty  days'  notice  of  any 
determined  change  of  prices  or  rules.  The  spirit  of  this 
application  was  as  courteous  as  its  form  was  equitable. 

At  a  meeting  of  employing  printers,  held  at  the  Astor 
House,  June  18,  Mr.  William  C.  Martin  in  the  chair,  it  was 
decided  that  a  committee  of  seven  employers  should  be 
appointed  to  confer  with  the  committee  of  seven  that  had 
already  been  appointed  by  the  Union. 

The  first  meeting  of  the  joint  committees  was  held  at  the 
Astor  House  on  June  21st.  The  reasons  assigned  by  the 
committee  of  the  Union  were  substantially  these : 

1 .  Eight  hours  is  the  law  of  the  land,  so  declared  by  this 

State  and  by  the  United  States. 

2.  A  shortening  of  the  hours  of  labor  is  needed  to  check 

over-production.     Men  will  be  better  employed. 

3.  It  is  needed  to  benefit  the  workman.     He  needs  more 

time  for  social  and  domestic  enjoyment  and  intel- 
lectual culture. 

4.  Reduced  hours  of  labor  are  in  accord  with  the  spirit  of 

the   times.     It  is  the  fashion  in   other  trades  and 
should  be  in  this.  _ 

M166009 


5.  Improvements  in  machinery  have  so  increased  produc- 
tion that  long  hours  are  not  needed.  One  can  now 
do,  with  modern  appliances,  more  in  eight  hours 
than  he  could  have  done  years  ago  in  ten  hours. 
The  extra  two  hours  is  a  useless  drudgery. 

To  these  propositions  it  may  be  replied  : 

1.  The  law  is  fully  applicable  only  in  the  civil  service  of 
the  State.     It  was  so  understood  by  the  legislators.     It  defines 
hours  where  there  is  no  usage  or  agreement,  but  it  does  not 
define  wages.     It  cannot ;    for  legislation  like  this  is  beyond 
the  powers  of  the  State.     If  the  State  enacted  twelve  hours 
as  a  day's  work,  no  day-workman  would  feel  obliged  to  give 
away  two  hours  more  of  time.     As  the  law  now  reads,  it 
cannot  be  pretended  that  it  is  the  duty  of  the  employer  to 
give  the  value  of  two  hours  to  his  workman. 

The  law  is  not  fully  obeyed  by  the  executive  officers  of  the 
State  or  the  Nation.  Even  if  it  were,  the  usage  of  the  State 
is  too  partial  and  too  unfair  to  be  quoted  as  a  precedent. 
Unlike  any  individual  employer,  the  State  is  not  controlled 
by  questions  of  profit  or  loss,  nor  limited  by  the  action  of 
competitors.  In  this,  as  in  other  matters,  it  acts  independ- 
ently, for  it  is  irresponsible. 

2.  There  is  no  over-production  in  printing,  as  will  here- 
after be  more  clearly  set  forth.     The  real  grief  of  the  unem- 
ployed labor  in  typography  is,  that  it  does  not  produce  all  that 
is  sold.     Too  much  of  the  printed  work  that  is  sold  or  used 
in  the  city  is  manufactured  outside  its  limits.     This  evil  will 
be  augmented  by  shortening  the  hours  of  labor. 

It  is  a  mistake  to  assume  that  many  pieces  of  printing 
that  are  now  done  in  eight  weeks  will  have  to  be  done  in  ten 
weeks  ;  that  short  time  will  insure  more  and  steadier  work 
to  all  classes  of  workmen.  A  greater  delay  in  doing  work  is 
contrary  to  the  spirit  of  the  age  and  the  habits  of  business 
men.  It  will  not  be  tolerated.  No  employer  can  enforce 
such  a  delay  on  his  customer.  To  shorten  the  hours  of  work 
is  to  compel  the  employer  to  buy  more  machines,  to  occupy 
more  room,  to  keep  more  men,  and  especially  boys,  in  em- 
ploy. It  will  bring  more  in  the  trade,  but  it  will  not 


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crease  their  chances  of  steadier  employment.     On  the  con- 
y,  it  will  ultimately  make  their  chances  more  precarious. 

3.  The  alleged  benefit  to  the  mechanic  is  doubtful.    There 
e  instances  in  which  the  decrease  of  hours  of  labor  would 
5  of  great  advantage  to  the  workman  and  his  family ;  there 
e  others  where  it  would  be  injurious.     But  this  personal 
hase  of  the  question  should  not  be  considered.     The  use  or 

use  of  the  mechanic's  leisure  time  may  be  a  fit  theme  for 
e  moralist  or  legislator  ;  on  the  part  of  the  employer,  its 
scussion  is  considered,  and  not  unreasonably,  as  an  im- 
rtinence.  The  workman  is  not  accountable  to  the  employer 
or  his  unemployed  time. 

The  result  of  short  hours  of  labor  on  society  is  another 
matter  which   may  be  noticed  with  propriety.     There  is  a 
mischievous  doctrine  that  we  work  too  much — a  doctrine  of 
xceeding  comfort  to  thousands  of  idlers,  but  it  is  one  that 
ust  be  rejected  by  every  candid  observer.     All  the  advan- 
tages of  civilization  that  we  enjoy  have  been  chiefly  earned 
by    long  and  hard  work  ;    they  are  upheld    by   work,    and 
would  soon   be  forfeited  if  we  should    materially  diminish 
our  performance.     The  condition  of  the  mechanic  in  New 
England  and  the  mechanic  in  Mexico  is  a  fit  illustration  of 
the  advantages  of  long  and  short  hours  of  labor.     The  New 
ngland  mechanic,  who  works  the  longer  hours,  best  knows 
ow  to  use  his  leisure — has  more  of  the  comforts  of  life,  is 
etter  paid,  is  better  educated,  is  more  of  a  man  every  way. 
t  is  his  superiority,  physically  and  mentally,  that  gives  tone 
society  and  strength  to  the  state.     The  Mexican  mechanic, 
ho  has  less  work  to  do  and  who  works  less,  has  most  leisure, 
ut  he  is  poorer,  is  ignorant,  has  less  opportunity  for  acquir- 
g  wealth,  and  less  protection  to  life,  liberty,  or  property. 

4.  The  proposition  that  a  reduction  in  the  hours  of  labor 
in  accord  with  the  spirit  of  the  times,  is  not  entirely  cor- 

t.  The  inferences  commonly  made  from  this  propos- 
m  are  illogical.  It  is  true,  that  within  seventy  years  the 
ours  of  labor  have  been  reduced  from  fourteen  to  twelve, 
d  from  twelve  to  ten.  In  this  country  they  were  reduced 
owly,  almost  without  organized  action  on  the  part  of  the 
echanic,  in  obedience  to  natural  laws,  and  without  injury 


to  any  interest.  Does  it  follow  that  we  must  now  reduce  to 
eight  ?  If  so,  why  not  to  six,  or  to  one  ? 

The  prime  agent  in  this  reduction  of  the  hours  of  labor 
has  been  the  use  of  steam  and  machinery  instead  of  muscle. 
They  have  increased  production  to  such  an  extent,  that 
shortened  hours  of  labor  were  really  needed  to  restore  the 
balance.  But  has  there  been,  within  the  last  ten  or  twenty 
years,  any  really  great  labor-saving  invention  equal  to  the 
steam-engine  ?  Has  new  machinery  been  invented  that  to  a 
great  extent  has  made  new  uses  for  labor  ? 

There  never  was  greater  need  for  work  than  there  is 
to-day.  There  never  was  a  time  when  men  were  more  judged 
by  their  work.  There  is  no  greater  stigma,  short  of  crimi- 
nality, than  that  of  idler  or  loafer.  It  is  the  fashion  to  work. 
There  is  no  eminent  man  in  any  deserving  position  who  has 
attained  his  success  but  through  work — and  work  not  of 
eight,  but  of  ten  and  more  hours  a  day.  It  is  a  sad  mistake 
for  any  mechanic  to  assume  that  he  always  works  longer 
hours  than  others.  There  are,  it  is  true,  subordinate  positions 
in  which  the  work  of  the  day  has  to  be  finished  every  day. 
When  it  occupies  six  hours  a  day,  the  mechanic  is  envious  ; 
but  he  forgets  that  there  are  many  days  when  the  same  man 
has  to  work  sixteen  hours  a  day,  and  without  extra  pay. 

In  all  regular  trades  ten  hours  is  the  rule.  It  is  the 
basis  of  all  prices.  The  stubborn  resistance  made  by  em- 
ployers of  every  class  to  the  change  to  eight  hours  is  not 
unreasonable.  It  is  a  sudden  alteration  in  a  measure  of  value 
that  disturbs  all  prices  and  upsets  all  estimates.  It  is  not  a 
reform ;  it  is  a  revolution.  To  the  mechanic  it  is  a  dangerous 
experiment.  He  cannot  now  foresee  the  possible  or  probable 
complications  in  which  the  adoption  of  shorter  hours  will 
entangle  him.  There  is  a  house  in  this  city  that  has  declared 
eight  hours  as  insufficient  for  the  amount  of  business  it  does 
daily.  When  menaced  with  the  enforcement  of  the  eight- 
hour  system,  it  proposed  to  shorten  the  day  to  six  hours,  and 
to  employ  two  sets  of  mechanics.  This  is  but  one  of  many 
ways  by  which  shortened  hours  would  be  of  great  damage  to 
the  workmen.  They  would  ultimately  get  less  wages,  and 
make  themselves  more  competitors. 


A  sudden  shortening  of  the  hours  of  labor,  with  its  cor- 
responding advance  in  prices,  can  be  of  no  real  and  lasting 
benefit  to  the  journeymen.  If  the  compositor  on  time,  in 
1862,  had  been  told  that,  in  1872,  he  would  be  in  the 
steady  receipt  of  $20  per  week,  he  would  probably  have 
expressed  his  content  with  the  advance.  But  he  is  not  now 
content.  Neither  he,  nor  any  of  us,  could  then  foresee  to 
what  an  extent  the  purchasing  capacity  of  money  would  be 
diminished.  A  similar  future  result  will  surely  follow  a 
similar  present  advance.  If  this  advance  could  be  confined  to 
printing,  it  might  be  a  benefit  to  the  printer.  But  it  cannot 
be  so  confined.  Other  men,  other  trades*  in  self-defence, 
will  advance  their  rates.  If  the  production  of  the  country 
is  decreased  one-fifth,  and  its  prices  are  appreciated  one- 
fourth,  an  increase  in  wages,  so  far  from  being  a  benefit,  is  a 
real  injury.  With  wages  at  $25  or  $30,  the  same  dissatis- 
faction would  exist,  and  for  the  same  reasons. 

5.  It  is  true  that,  by  the  aid  of  machinery  in  some  depart- 
ments, the  mechanic  of  1872  can  do  more  work  in  eight  hours 
than  he  could  have  done  in  ten  hours  in  1830.  It  does  not 
follow  that  the  employer  of  the  machinery  receives  the  same 
prices  or  makes  the  same  profit.  The  facts  are  the  reverse, 
as  will  be  shown  hereafter.  The  workman  receives  his  share 
of  advantages  from  machinery.  In  the  press-room  of  a  print- 
ing office  he  has  steadier  work,  better  pay,  less  drudgery,  less 
responsibility.  In  the  composing-room  of  a  printing  office 
there  have  been  no  great  improvements,  and,  consequently, 
no  reduction  of  expenses  to  employers.  It  has  been  asserted 
that  as  much  work  might  be  expected  in  a  day  of  eight  hours 
as  had  been  done  in  ten  hours.  This  is  obviously  in  flat  con- 
tradiction to  the  request  for  an  advance  of  twenty  per  cent, 
on  piece  rates. 

With  employing  printers  this  question  of  eight  hours  and 
higher  prices  is  not  so  much  a  question  of  expediency  as  of 
ability.  To  shorten  hours  and  to  advance  piece  rates  is  to 
increase  the  cost  of  work.  Who  will  pay  this  increased  cost  ? 

There  are  compositors  (not  many)  who  believe  that  the 
employer  should  pay  it  out  of  existing  profits.  There  are 


others  who  think  that  it  could  be  secured,  with  more  or  less 
of  exertion,  from  the  buyer  of  printed  matter.  Employers, 
without  exception,  are  of  opinion  that  they  cannot  pay  it 
out  of  present  profits,  and  that  it  cannot  be  had  from  the 
buyer.  The  opposition  made  is  not  factious.  Assure  any 
employer  that  he  can  secure  this  advance,  and  although  he 
doubts  its  ultimate  advantage  to  any  interest,  he  will  accede 
to  the  request  for  eight  hours.  It  is  only  because  he  sees 
difficulties  that  he  hesitates  or  declines.  The  question  that 
seems  so  easy  of  solution  to  the  compositor — nothing  but  the 
asking  and  getting  of  more  money  from  the  buyer  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  paying  out  of  a  corresponding  sum  on  the  other 
hand — is  to  the  book  and  job  printer  a  problem  beset  with 
difficulties.  To  ask  the  money  is  not,  necessarily,  to  get  it. 
To  ask  it,  and  insist  on  it,  may  be  to  lose  what  one  already 
has.  The  employing  printer  cannot  coerce  his  customer,  who 
has  the  power  to  take  his  work  to  rivals  either  in  or  out  of 
the  city.  The  nature,  the  extent  and  the  causes  of  this  rivalry 
among  offices  are  seldom  properly  considered.  It  is  necessary, 
as  a  preliminary,  to  recite  some  of  these  facts. 

The  typographic  printing  of  New  York  may  be  divided 
into  five  distinct  classes  : 

1.  Printers  and  publishers  of  newspapers  or  periodicals. 

2.  Compositors  of  newspapers. 

3.  Printers  and  publishers  of  books. 

4.  Book  printers  or  stereotypers. 

5.  Job  printers. 

There  is  no  one  office  in  this  city  that  pretends  to  do  the 
work  of  all  these  classes.  There  are  offices  that  do  book,  job 
and  card  printing  ;  but  in  most  offices  the  separation  as  above 
stated  is  sharply  defined.  For  its  successful  prosecution,  each 
class  requires  a  special  kind  and  separate  organization  of  labor, 
a  special  provision  of  types  and  presses,  and  a  special  educa- 
tion or  apprenticeship  on  the  part  of  the  managers  or  proprie- 
tors. Compositors  may,  and  do,  work  in  any  of  these  branches 
with  more  or  less  facility,  but  employers  cannot.  Their  in- 
terests are  distinct.  They  do  not  fraternize  any  more  than  if 


they  belonged  to  distinct  trades.  The  printer  and  publisher 
>f  a  newspaper  is  quite  indifferent  as  to  the  rules  and  prices 
>f  a  job  printer;  the  book  printer  is  equally  unconcerned  as 
the  practices  of  a  card  printer — quite  as  much  removed 
Prom  collusion  as  from  competition. 

Morning  Newspapers. — There  are  twenty-four  daily  news- 
>apers  in  New  York  city,  viz. :  eighteen  printed  in  English 
language,  three  in  German,  two  in  French,  one  in  Danish, 
'welve  of  them  are  morning  papers.     In  all  cases  they  own 
:-heir  types  and  presses.    Most  of  them  have  abundant  capital, 
and  employ  many  compositors,  who  are  always  men.     The 
weekly  wages  are  $24,  for  sixty   hours  of  work,  twelve  of 
which  must  be  in  daytime.     For  night-work  only,  the  rate  is 
$22  for  a  week  of  forty-eight  hours.     Piece-work  is  paid  at 
;he  rate  of  50  cents  per  1000  ems,  unless  it  is  all  done  at 
light,  for  which  the  rate  is  55  cents  per  1000  ems.     For  un- 
employed time  they  receive  40  cents  an  hour.     At  these  rates, 
the  earnings  of  a  piece  compositor  vary  from  $20  to  $35  per 
week.     The  average  earnings  of  all  regular  workmen  may  be 
put  at  $27  per  week.     Although  the  piece  rates  are  but  little 
higher  than  those  of  book-work,  a  morning-paper  situation  is 

considered  as  one  of  the  best  in  the  trade. 

• 

Evening  Newspapers. — There  are  nine  evening  newspapers. 
Weekly  wages  are  $20  for  sixty  hours  of  work.  The  price 
per  1000  ems  of  common  matter  is  45  cents.  Most  of  the 
work  is  done  by  the  piece.  Situations  on  evening  papers  are 
preferred  by  most  piece  compositors.  The  earnings  are  fully 
up  to  or  exceed  the  weekly  rate. 

Other  Newspapers  and  Periodicals. — The  Business  Directory 
of  this  year  contains  the  names  of  about  375  periodicals  not 
previously  described.  This  number  embraces  every  kind  of 
a  periodical  from  a  semi-annual  to  a  tri-weekly — from  a  mag- 
azine of  500,000  ems  to  a  leaflet  of  15,000  ems.  Three  or 
four  of  these  periodicals  are  printed  by  their  publishers,  who 

Bboth  types  and  presses  ;  a  larger  number  own  the  types 
lo  their  composition,  but  have  their  press-work  done  by 


10 

the  trade :  but  most  of  these  periodicals  have  both  compo- 
sition and  press-work  done  by  book  or  job  printers,  or  by  the 
compositors  of  newspapers.  The  wages  of  the  men  workmen 
are  substantially  the  same  as  those  paid  by  the  evening  news- 
papers— $20  a  week  and  45  cents  per  1000  ems.  These  situa- 
tions are  not  in  special  request.  On  some  papers  compositors 
will  earn  over  $20  a  week,  but  on  most  the  average  is  below 
$17.  Much  of  the  work  is  done  by  boys  and  girls,  who  work 
at  about  two-third  rates. 

By  book  journeymen  and  employers,  newspaper  compo- 
sition is  rated  as  the  simplest  kind  of  work.  It  requires  the 
least  capital,  and  keeps  that  capital  in  most  constant  use. 
Better  than  any  other  branch,  it  allows  the  use  of  boys. 
Prices  are  consequently  lower  than  for  any  other  kind  of 
composition.  Although  weekly  or  monthly  newspaper  work 
is  done  by  several  book  and  job  printing  houses,  there  are 
several  offices  in  which  it  is  the  exclusive  business. 

Compositors  of  Newspapers. — This  branch  of  newspaper 
printing  is  seriously  damaged  by  competition,  both  in  the 
ranks  of  the  employers  and  the  employed.  Journeymen 
complain  that  it  is  infested  with  boys,  girls  and  'two-thirders, 
who  deprive  or  prevent  union  men  from  employment;  em- 
ployers complain  that  the  competition  and  sharp  practices  of 
journeymen  who  have  suddenly  become  employers,  have  so 
debased  the  rates  that  they  have  no  alternative  but  to  employ 
an  undue  proportion  of  two-thirders.  The  causes  and  effects 
of  this  competition  deserve  investigation.  The  employers' 
rate  for  this  class  of  work  is  80  and  85  cents  per  1000  ems. 
To  a  thrifty  weekly  newspaper,  with  a  large  circulation,  this 
rate  is  not  a  serious  tax ;  to  a  paper  struggling  for  existence 
it  is  a  heavy  burden.  Unfortunately,  the  latter  is  the  larger 
class.  Like  all  other  close  or  needy  buyers,  newspaper  pub- 
lishers use  every  effort  to  have  their  work  done  cheaply. 
They  continually  invite  proposals,  and  usually  give  the  work 
to  the  lowest  bidder.  As  a  rule,  all  these  publishers  prefer  to 
have  the  work  done  in  an  office  where  composition  and  press- 
work  can  be  done  by  the  same  firm — all  the  better  if  forms 
can  be  electrotyped,  papers  folded  and  mailed  under  the  same 


: 


It 

f.  Printers  who  can  furnish  this  accommodation  know 
;hat  the  rates  given  cannot  be  reduced  with  profit  or  safety. 
The  composition  of  a  weekly  newspaper  that  contains 
200,000  ems  will  furnish  steady  employment  for  six  men. 
Unlike  any  other  branch  of  printing,  the  materials  required 
for  such  a  paper  are  comparatively  cheap  ;  $1000  judiciously 
spent,  and  sometimes  much  less,  will  suffice  for  the  outfit. 
The  securing  of  the  composition  of  such  newspapers  is  the 
means  by  which  many  active  and  enterprising  compositors 
set  themselves  up  in  business.  But  the  work  can  be  secured 
only  by  making  a  lower  bid  than  the  established  rate.  Few 
compositors  who  are  bent  on  going  in  business  have  any 
hesitation  in  making  bids  of  75  or  70  cents.  There  are  those 
who  have  offered  65  and  60  cents,  and  even  less.  Such  a 
spective  employer  is  sure  that  he  can  do  the  work  at  less 
an  established  rates.  He  will  work  himself,  and  secure  a 
rofit  from  the  labor  of  six  men.  More :  he  will  make  up, 
read  proof,  and  keep  his  own  accounts,  and  save  the  expense 
of  time-hands,  clerks  and  proof-reader.  The  fallacy  in  this 
proposition  is  not  perceived.  In  practical  work,  he  finds  that 
he  does  not  profit  by  the  saved  expense  of  these  time-hands. 
The  only  difference  between  his  method  and  that  of  his  late 
employer  is,  that  he  does  with  his  own  hands  for  little  or 
othing,  the  same  work  for  which  others  pay  money.  The 
tablished  employer  spends  money  for  the  labor;  the  new 
employer  wastes  or  gives  away  time.  In  either  case  the  cost 
f  the  work  is  substantially  the  same.  One  party  is  paid  for 
;  the  other  is  not. 

A  year's  experience  proves  that  the  reduced  rates  are  too 
w.  The  amateur  employer  finds,  in  many  cases,  that  he  has 
ot  netted  journeyman's  wages.  It  is  a  dreadful  discovery 
r  a  journeyman  who  has  always  stood  out  for  high  prices 
find,  after  a  year  of  extra  unpaid  labor  in  management  and 
sponsibility,  that  he  has  been  ratting,  that  he  has  actually 
en  working  for  less  than  $20  per  week.  What  can  he  do  ? 
o  raise  the  price  on  the  publisher  is  impossible.  He  has 
ut  one  alternative — to  discharge  one  or  more  of  his  men,  and 
ut  on  boys  at  two-third  rates.  He  does  it. 

It  is  seldom  that  an  established  employer  allows  work  like 
is  to  pass  out  of  his  hands  without  a  struggle.    He  imitates 


12 

the  amateur  employer's  tactics.  He  farms  out  the  composi- 
tion to  his  foreman.  It  is  not  difficult  to  find  a  workman  who 
will  contract  to  do  all  the  work  connected  with  composition 
and  reading  for  a  rate  per  1000  ems  closely  approximating 
that  of  the  journeyman.  This  contractor  pays  the  hands  and 
takes  the  responsibility;  the  employer  furnishes  only  the 
room  and  the  materials.  To  cover  the  cost  of  the  proof- 
reading and  the  making-up,  and  other  time  work,  it  is  under- 
stood that  the  contractor  shall  have  the  right  to  hire  boys  or 
two-thirders.  It  is  by  methods  like  these  that  the  rates  of 
newspaper  composition  have  been  reduced,  and  that  the  trade 
is  filled  with  boys  working  at  reduced  rates.  The  reduction 
of  prices  has  been  but  slightly  affected  by  the  rivalry  of  es- 
tablished offices ;  it  is  the  competition  of  amateur  employers 
that  has  been  most  effectual  in  crowding  the  newspaper  trade 
with  two-thirders. 

Printers  and  Publishers  of  Books  and  Magazines. — There 
are  about  half-a-dozen  firms  or  incorporations  that,  in  addition 
to  publishing,  own  and  control  manufactories  in  which  every 
branch  of  book-making  is  done.  All  of  these  houses  are 
wealthy — made  so,  however,  not  by  printing,  but  by  pub- 
lishing. All  have  large  composing  rooms  and  employ  many 
workmen.  Weekly  wages  are  $20;  but  most  of  the  work 
is  done  at  the  established  rates  of  47  to  53  cents  per  1000 
ems  to  men ;  40  cents  to  girls ;  and  two-thirds  of  men's 
rates  to  boys.  The  earnings  of  the  men  at  these  rates  vary 
from  $12  to  $24  per  week.  The  higher  figure  is  seldom 
reached;  the  average  earnings  are  nearer  $15  per  week. 
The  complaint  of  the  workmen  in  these  offices  is,  that  they 
are  too  irregularly  employed ;  that  they  are  often  denied 
work  while  boys  and  girls  are  kept  in  full  employment. 
Even  with  this  drawback,  the  printing  office  of  a  publisher 
is  preferred  by  the  compositor  to  that  of  the  regular  book 
printer,  for  the  publisher  who  owns  a  printing  office  is  better 
able  to  keep  it  supplied  with  work.  The  publishers  say 
that  they  provide  the  work  too  often  to  their  own  disad- 
vantage, in  the  giving  out  of  works  of  slow  or  doubtful 
sale.  They  are  induced  to  take  this  course  because  they  have 


13 

laterials  they  wish  to  keep  employed,  and  because  they  pay 
no  master-printer's  profit  on  the  composition  and  press-work. 

Boole  Printers  or  Stereotype™. — Under  this  heading  may  be 
included  the  offices  that  make  stereotype  plates  or  print  books 
only,  to  the  order  of  the  publishers.  Of  this  class  there  are 
not  more  than  twenty  firms.  Some  of  them  do  nothing  but 
composition  and  stereotyping  ;  some  nothing  but  press-work. 
or  is  book-work  the  chief  business  of  the  remainder.  There 
•e  but  seven  offices  in  this  city  that  can  be  properly  con- 
idered  as  exclusive  book-houses.  Even  if  a  more  liberal  con- 
struction were  made — if  twenty  more  job  .and  pamphlet  and 
law-case  printers  were  rated  as  book  printers,  the  dispropor- 
tion of  book  printers  to  that  of  the  150  book  publishers 
is  apparently  anomalous.  The  contrast  of  these  figures  is 
enough  to  show  that  the  book  printing  of  New  York  city,  if 
it  has  not  declined,  has  certainly  not  kept  even  pace  with  the 
wealth  and  population,  or  even  with  the  growth  of  the  pub- 
lishing trade.  The  older  printers  of  the  city,  who  have  some 
recollection  of  the  number  of  compositors  then  employed 
by  Messrs.  Trow,  Craighead,  Benedict,  Fanshaw,  Ludwig, 
Smith,  Jenkins,  Reed  &  Cunningham,  Adee,  and  many  others, 
and  contrast  the  many  book  offices  of  that  day  with  the  few 
book  offices  of  this,  will  readily  admit  that  the  book-printing 
trade  of  New  York  has  not  increased  as  it  should  have  done. 
The  wages  in  all  offices  are  the  same  as  those  of  the  book 
publishers  and  printers — $20  a  week  for  the  men  on  time ; 
47  to  53  cents  per  1000  ems  for  piece-work  to  men  ;  40  cents 
per  1000  ems  to  girls;  two-thirds  of  men's  rates  to  boys.  The 
earnings  of  the  men  are  rather  less  than  of  those  in  the  pub- 
lishers' offices  ;  $12  per  week  may  be  hazarded  as  the  average 
of  all  men  throughout  the  year.  At  established  rates,  a  good 
workman,  on  fair  work,  may  earn  $24  a  week ;  but  he  seldom 
has  the  opportunity.  Compositors  complain  that  the  work  is 
exceedingly  irregular — that  a  month  of  activity  is  followed 
by  a  month  of  idleness;  that  work  is  done  with  injudicious 
haste,  and  without  regard  to  their  convenience ;  that  they 
frequently  stand  idle  for  want  of  letter  or  of  proof;  that  the 
quality  of  work  offered  is  unprofitable,  consisting  largely  of 


trequen 
quality 


14 

bad  manuscript  or  difficult  work,  and  quite  inferior  in  value 
to  that  done  here  twenty  years  ago  ;  that  proof-readers  are 
nicer  and  more  exacting,  and  do  not  allow  the  compositor  to 
make  speed. 

Admitting  the  truth  of  most  of  these  claims,  the  em- 
ployers reply  that  the  losses  occasioned  by  irregular  supply 
of  work  are  caused  by  the  orders  of  the  publisher  ;  they 
work  only  to  order,  and  have  to  do  the  work  in  the  time  and 
in  the  manner  desired ;  that  the  losses  by  delayed  proofs  and 
overworked  fonts  of  letter  are  as  great  to  them  as  to  the 
workmen.  It  is  an  evil  they  cannot  prevent.  They  further 
say,  that  the  quality  of  the  work  is  beyond  their  control ; 
that  the  fat  reprints  and  easy  work,  the  proofs  of  which  are 
never  meddled  with  by  author  or  publisher,  are  for  that  very 
reason  done  outside  of  the  city  at  cheaper  rates ;  that  the 
composition  that  is  refused  at  any  rate  less  than  47  cents  by 
New  York  compositors,  is  done  not  sixty  miles  distant,  to  the 
satisfaction  of  the  publisher,  by  girls,  at  20  cents  per  1000 
ems  and  S3  per  week.  The  inequality  between  the  New 
York  and  the  rural  price  is  so  great  that  competition  by  men 
is  hopeless.  The  alleged  unfairness  of  keeping  two-thirders 
and  girls  on  fat  work  in  city  offices,  while  men  have  lean 
work,  it  is  claimed,  is  nearly  always  caused  by  this  com- 
petition. The  employer  who  so  apportions  his  work  is 
striving,  rather  ineffectually,  to  compete  with  the  country 
printer.  In  the  matter  of  rates,  employers  state  that  they 
are  now  paying  to  men  an  unusually  large  proportion  of 
their  receipts,  as  may  be  seen  by  the  following  table: 

e Year N 

1850  1862   1863   1864  1869 
Workman's  Charge  for  Compo- 
sition per  1000  ems 27       32       36       50       53 

Employer's  Charge  for  Compo- 
sition per  1000  ems 50       55       60       90       90 

Percentage  of  advance  made  by 

employer 85       72       663      80       70 

The  prices  quoted  are  the  extreme  prices  of  both  compositor  and  employer. 

Although  the  book  composition  of  this  city  is  now  done  at 
the  smallest  margin  of  profit,  this  contrast  of  the  rates  for 
different  years  does  not  fairly  indicate  the  relative  expense. 


15 

Work  is  now  done  by  much  more  expensive  methods.  A 
book  printer  has  to  keep  much  larger  fonts  of  type,  and  in 
much  greater  variety  of  faces  ;  he  has  to  condemn  these  types 
as  worn  out  when  they  have  had  less  service ;  he  has  to  pay 
relatively  much  higher  rates  for  proof-reading  and  for  super- 
vision ;  he  ha's  to  do  his  work  in  greater  haste ;  he  can  only 
hope  to  do  the  most  troublesome  and  least  profitable  kind  of 
work.  The  53  cents  paid  for  composition  of  1000  ems  of  solid 
manuscript  is  but  for  a  part  of  the  labor.  The  matter  has  to 
be  read,  and  supervised,  at  a  large  increase  of  cost — never 
less  than  one-fourth,  sometimes  more  than  one-third  of  the 
compositors'  charge.  When  other  contingent  expenses  are 
added,  the  cost  of  1000  ems  done  exclusively  by  men's  labor 
is  rarely  ever  less  than  SO  cents.  At  this  estimate  the  profit 
cannot  be  more  than  10  cents  per  1000  ems.  It  is  too  often 
less.  As  compositors  do  not  average  more  than  5000  ems  per 
day,  the  profit  of  the  employer  on  each  man  is  less  than  50 
cents  per  day. 

In  1850-2,  a  regular  piece  compositor,  in  a  large  book 
office,  could  depend,  with  reasonable  certainty,  upon  earning 
$9  a  week  at  the  rate  of  27  cents  per  1000.  In  1872,  the 
same  workman,  in  a  similar  office,  at  the  rate  of  50  cents,  will 
not  average  $16  a  week.  He  finds  that  although  he  has  nearly 
doubled  his  rates,  he  has  not  doubled  his  income — that  every 
advance  in  wages  is  followed  by  hindrances  in  the  method  of 
doing  work  that  much  diminish  his  performance. 

There  are  other  reasons  why  the  earnings  of  the  book 
compositor  do  not  increase  with  the  advance  in  wages. 

The  increasing  prevalence  of  incompetent  workmen  in 
the  ranks  of  journeymen  is  a  common  complaint  with  em- 
ployers. Few  workmen  know  how  to  make-up,  to  make 
margin,  impose,  display  titles,  or  set  neat  tables,  or  do  other 
work  that  pertains  to  the  duties  of  a  good  printer.  Most  of 
them  know  only  bow  to  set  type ;  too  many  cannot  do  this 
properly.  The  slow  and  faulty  compositor  is  paid  as  much 
per  1000  ems  as  the  good;  but  he  unfairly  adds  to  the  labor 
of  the  foreman  and  reader,  he  destroys  type,  delays  other 
workmen,  and  in  every  way  is  a  serious  hindrance. 

The  average  compositor  does  not  always  accept  work  at  the 
prices  that  have  been  approved  and  adopted  by  the  Union. 


16 

He  does  not  incline  to  steady  situations.  So  long  as  the 
work  on  which  he  may  be  engaged  proves  to  be  fat  and  pays 
well,  he  will  remain;  if  it  is  lean  or  troublesome,  he  throws 
up  his  situation.  He  often  prefers  to  be  idle  for  days 
together  rather  than  take  a  case  at  any  job  that  will  compel 
him  to  harder  exertion  to  make  full  wages.  The  city  has 
always  been  full  of  compositors  of  this  stamp  —  always 
changing,  always  on  the  lookout  for  a  time  situation  and 
fat  piece-work — unable  to  see  that  they  lose  more  time  and 
money  in  these  repeated  changes  than  they  would  by  sticking 
to  one  office  and  sharing  its  luck.  It  is  this  incompetency  of 
the  ordinary  workmen,  and  the  restlessness  and  shirking  of 
implied  obligations  by  the  good  compositors,  that  have  induced 
many  employers  to  overstock  their  offices  with  boys  and 
two-thirders.  It  is  claimed  that  they  do  their  work  quite  as 
well  as  the  poor  workman,  and  that  they  will  stick  to  their 
work. 

The  evil  from  which  employing  book  printers  most  suffer 
is  the  want  of  remunerative  work.  There  is  scarce  a  book 
office  in  the  city  that  has  not  material  enough  to  do  thrice 
the  work  that  is  done.  The  types  and  men  are  idle  more 
than  half  the  time.  The  work  that  should  be  done  in  the 
city  goes  abroad.  The  established  rate  of  the  New  York 
printers  for  composition  and  stereotyping  is  $1.35  per  1000 
ems,  but  many  good  houses  have  reduced  the  rate  to  $1.25. 
The  reduction  is  not  enough  to  meet  the  views  of  publishers. 
They  get  the  work  done  in  interior  and  eastern  cities  and 
villages  for  $1.00,  for  95,  for  90  cents.  Not  even  at  the  two- 
third  rates  of  boys  or  girls  can  New  York  employers  compete 
with  these  prices.  But  this  competition  of  interior  towns, 
annoying  as  it  is,  is  not  as  menacing  as  that  of  Europe. 

When  the  price  of  labor  began  to  rise  in  this  country, 
shrewd  buyers  went  abroad  to  seek  advantages  they  could 
not  get  here.  They  found  in  England  that  labor  could  be 
had  at  half  the  American  rate ;  in  Holland  and  Germany  at 
nearly  one-third  our  prices.  Nothing  but  the  rate£  of  exchange 
and  the  high  premium  on  gold  prevented  the  transfer  to  foreign 
printers  of  a  large  portion  of  our  printed  work.  The  times 
have  changed.  The  premium  on  gold  is  comparatively  trivial. 
It  will  pay  an  American  publisher  to  have  his  books  made 


5 


17 

,broad.    It  will  pay  any  English  printer  or  publisher  to  make 
effort  to  get  a  foothold   in  the  American  market.      The 
agined  profits  are  large.     The  book  that  costs,  if  made  in 
America,  $1  per  copy,  can  be  made  in  England  at  the  cost  of, 
t  most,  80  cents  a  copy. 

The  first  steps  for  this  long-threatened  transfer  of  work 
ave  already  been  taken.  One  of  our  largest  publishing 
ouses  ba&^lready  establrshed-«  printing  house  in  London. 
Another  is  making  preparations.  We  may  be  sure  that  many 
hers  will  soon  follow  their  example.  It  is  not  a  matter  of 
choice,  but  of  necessity.  If  American  publishers  wait  any 
longer,  foreign  houses  will  acquire  the  control  of  the  Ameri- 
can book  trade. 

The  American  printing  offices  that  have  initiated  this  ex- 
periment of  foreign  manufacture  are  wealthy  and  own  large 
;inting  offices,  in  which  they  pay  no  master-printer's  profits ; 
ey  have  the  power  and  the  knowledge  to  institute  any 
economy  they  may  fancy  in  the  manufacture  of  their  work. 
With  all  these  advantages,  they  deliberately  decide  to  let  a 
portion  of  their  capital,  invested  at  home  in  printing  machin- 
ery, lie  idle;  they  deoida .M to- cqnip  new,  .pyifffefeag  offices 
abroad,  and  submit  to  the  inconvenience  of  dependence  on  a 
anufactory  three  thousand  miles  distant.  There  are  other 
ublishers  who  are  deliberating  on  the  superior  advantages 
nd  still  cheaper  labor  of  cities  in  Germany.  A  few  months 
ore  and  we  shall  see  books  by  American  authors  and 
ublishers  that  have  been  printed  in  foreign  offices.  Who  is 
ponsible  for  this  national  disgrace  ? 

There  is  a  large  amount  of  book-work  done  in  New  York 
;hat  is  not  stereotyped,  nor  sold  by  the  regular  publishers  of 
e   trade.     Law  cases,   catalogues  and  pamphlets  are  the 
ost  noticeable  examples.    Like  weekly  newspapers,  this  class 
f  work  does  not  require  a  large  outlay  for  types.   The  press- 
ork  is  usually  trivial :  it  is  often  done  on  a  cheap  hand-press ; 
not  done  where  the  type  is  set,  it  can  be  done  by  other 
rinters  without  loss  and  with   little   inconvenience.     This 
ork  offers  a  fine  opportunity  to  a  journeyman  to  commence 
usiness.     It  has  been  largely  followed,  and  this  is  the  result. 
1860,  when  wages  were  $11  per  week,  the  price  of  law 
es  per  page  was  75  cents  ;  in  1872,  when  wages  are  $20, 


18 

the  nominal  price  is  $1.25  per  page.  Wages  advance  81  per 
cent. ;  employers'  prices  advance  60  per  cent.  Yet  the  price 
is  but  nominal.  More  than  half  the  law-work  of  the  city  is 
done  at  $1.10,  $1.00  or  95  cents  per  page.  In  catalogues 
and  pamphlets  there  is  a  similar  debasement  of  prices. 

Job  Printers. — Under  this  heading  may  be  placed  at  least 
350  printing  offices,  more  unequal  in  their  appointments  than 
those  of  any  other  class.  Some  of  them  do  book-work,  and 
have  stereotype  foundries  ;  many  have  stationery  stores  and 
book-binderies,  or  lithographic  or  engraving  offices,  and  keep 
employed  many  cylinder  presses  ;  but  at  least  half  of  the 
number  have  no  power  presses,  and  do  but  an  inconsiderable 
amount  of  business. 

In  this  branch  of  printing  there  is  no  piece-work.  All 
men  compositors  are  paid  at  the  uniform  rate  of  $20  per 
week.  The  smallest  offices,  that  do  not  use  power  presses, 
rarely  employ  men ;  boys,  at  $5  to  $10  a  week,  do  nearly 
all  the  work.  In  the  larger  offices  good  men  have  steady 
employment,  and  in  busy  seasons  they  frequently  do  over- 
work at  50  cents  an  hour.  Among  journeymen,  situations  in 
job  offices  are  preferred,  and  there  is  a  constant  effort  on  the 
part  of  incompetent  men  to  get  in  the  ranks.  All  employers 
agree  that  the  job  trade  is  full  of  inefficient  and  uneducated 
workmen.  While  job  compositors  are  not  seriously  discon- 
tented with  their  wages,  the  proprietors  of  most  job  offices 
are  disheartened  at  the  ruinous  competition  now  prevailing, 
and  with  the  menacing  aspects  of  the  future.  The  extent  of 
this  competition  will  be  more  clearly  understood  by  a  com- 
parison of  the  figures  in  the  annexed  table. 

Current  prices  for  job  work:  /^-1860—v 1872 N 

The  Fair  The 

Regular      Established    Competi- 

Rate.  Rate.        tive  Rate. 

Billheads,  per  ream $7.50  $10.00  $8.00 

Business  Cards,  No.  4,  per  1000 3.50  4.75  3.00 

Letter  Headings,  per  ream 5.00  6.50  4.00 

Handbills,  med.  8vo.,  per  1000 2.75  3.00  2.00 

«                  «            "10,000 12.50  15.00  10.00 

Posters,  half  med.,  1000 5.00  7.50  5.00 

Railroad  Blanks,  per  ream 5.50  7.00  5.60 

Letter  Circulars,  1  page,  J  sheet,  1000,  5.40  7.50  6.00 


Kf" 
\ 


: 


bi 


19 

equity  of  the  prices  under  the  heading  Fair  Estab- 

ished  Rate   should    need   no   further  justification  than  the 

imple  statement  of  the  facts  that  the  paper,  ink,  and 
materials  used  in  this  class  of  work  have  advanced,  since  1860, 
from  10  to  60  per  cent.,  and  that  labor  has  advanced  by  82 

er  cent.  In  no  instance  is  the  present  price  more  than 
50  per  cent.  This  insufficient  advance  shows  the  pressure  of 
competition.  It  shows,  too,  that  in  the  fixing  of  these  prices 
the  job  printer  has  given  to  the  buyer  much  of  the  advan- 

ages  of  improved  machinery  and  organization. 

The  insufficiency  of  the  Competitive  Rates  of  1872  is  as 
clearly  demonstrated.  In  the  face  of  this  large  advance  in 
the  price  of  labor  and  materials,  the  prices  are  really  lower 
than  they  were  in  1862.  These  low  prices  are  notorious. 
They  are  advertised  in  newspapers  and  street  cars ;  they  are 

rought  to  the  notice  of  every  business  man  by  handbills,  by 
drummers  and  bores.  Buyers  who  know  nothing  and  care 
nothing  about  the  cost  of  labor  or  paper,  are  kept  well- 
advised  that  there  is  a  keen  competition  among  job  printers, 
and  that  prices  are  going  downward.  Such  an  indifferent 
buyer  forms  the  erroneous  conclusion  that  the  difference  in 
rates  really  represents  the  difference  in  profit.  It  is  difficult 
to  make  him  understand  that  at  least  half  of  this  difference 
or  reduction  is  made  by  inferior  and  slovenly  workmanship ; 

hat  the  other  half  of  this  reduction  is  made  by  persons  who 
do  not  know  the  cost  or  the  value  of  work.  To  the  ordinary 

usiness  man  this  latter  statement  seems  incomprehensible, 
is  not  the  less  true.  The  charge  is  repeated  with  emphasis. 
Not  half  the  persons  in  New  York  who  make  estimates  and 
give  prices  for  printing  know  the  cost  of  doing  the  work. 
What  is  still  more  unfortunate,  they  have  that  "  little 
knowledge,"  so  dangerous  a  thing,  which  prevents  them  from 

K3arning  any  more. 
Fifteen  years  ago,  every  man,  so  far  as  the  writer's  recol- 
?ction  can  be  trusted,  who  was  the  proprietor  or  manager 
f  a  job  printing  office  in  New  York  city  was  a  printer.     At 
ifferent  periods  of  his  life  he  had  been  errand  boy,  com- 
positor   or    pressman,    proof-reader,   foreman,    book-keeper. 
There  was  no  part  of  the  business  with  which  he  was  not 


,b; 


20 

more  or  less  familiar.  He  not  only  knew  how  to  do  the  work, 
but  he  knew  the  time  it  would  take,  and  the  expense  it 
would  involve.  The  proprietors  or  managers  of  the  most 
reputable  offices,  large  or  small,  who,  in  face  of  an  active 
competition,  still  cling  to  established  rates,  are  all  of  this 
class. 

Within  ten  years,  many  new  proprietors  have  appeared 
who  are  entirely  ignorant  of  the  business.  As  stationers  or 
booksellers,  they  have  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  current  prices 
of  the  more  common  kinds  of  commercial  work ;  of  the  cost 
or  value  of  doing  that  work  they  know  nothing  whatever. 
Every  proprietor  of  such  an  office — and  there  are  many  of 
them — has  found  it  necessary  to  secure  the  services  of  a  man- 
ager— a  practical  printer,  who  must  be  the  foreman  of  the 
men,  and  by  turns,  must  be  salesman,  buyer,  book-keeper  and 
maker  of  estimates.  For  one  or  two  of  these  departments  it 
is  not  difficult  to  find  competent  journeymen;  but  it  is  rare  to 
find,  at  any  price,  a  practical  man  who  knows  how  to  make 
correct  estimates  as  well  as  how  to  manage  work.  But  it  is 
impossible  for  a  novice  to  carry  on  the  business  without  such 
a  manager.  Liberal  salaries  are  offered.  Compositors  who 
have  insufficient  qualifications — a  deficiency  which  the  pro- 
prietor cannot  discover — are  induced,  by  high  wages,  to  take 
this  responsible  position.  The  false  position  of  such  a  man- 
ager is  made  much  worse  by  the  technical  ignorance  of  his 
employer,  who  is  continually  and  eagerly  pressing  this 
manager  for  low  estimates  in  order  that  he  may  get  more 
work.  The  manager  tries  to  meet  his  views. 

Here  is  an  anomaly.  As  a  journeyman,  the  compositor 
has  clear  convictions  as  to  the  value  of  his  labor.  In  case  of 
doubt  he  always  takes  the  safe  side,  and  charges  his  employer 
the  highest  rate.  He  runs  no  risk,  for  he  has  the  Union  at 
his  back.  The  same  compositor,  suddenly  transmuted  into 
the  manager  of  a  stationer's  office,  has  grave  doubts  as  to  the 
justice  of  employer's  established  prices.  He  perceives  that 
they  are  too  high ;  he  sees  many  ways  whereby  they  can  be 
reduced  without  loss.  He  is  sure  that  he  can  do  what  they 
cannot — that  h^  can  make  money  where  others  lose.  The  first 
result  of  this  newly-awakened  perception  of  justice  is  that 


: 

s 


21 

he  frequently  accepts  work  for  his  employer  at  rates  that  he 
would  refuse  as  a  journeyman;  the  second  result,  sometimes 
ong  delayed,  is  his  retirement  from  office.     The  employing 
tioner,  in  balancing  his  books,  at  the  end  of  one  or  more 
ears,  discovers  that  his  printing  has  been  done  at  less  than 
st.     He  has  lost  money  by  his  experiment. 

While  there  has  been  an  apparent  decrease  in  the  number 
of  strict  book-printing  houses,  there  has  been  a  great  increase 
in  job  offices.  The  same  causes  that  induce  some  active 
nd  ambitious  compositors  to  undertake  the  composition  of  a 
newspaper,  or  the  management  of  a  stationer's  office,  induce 
others  to  try  the  experiment  of  going  in  -business.  It  does 
not  require  large  capital  to  set  up  as  a  job  printer.  One 
Gordon  press  and  a  few  fonts  of  card  type  enable  one  to  do 
small  cards,  bill-heads  and  labels.  Such  an  office  becomes  at 
once  a  rival  to  the  largest  office  for  this  class  of  work.  Some 
f  our  largest  offices  are  the  growth  of  the  most  trivial  begin- 
nings. Some  of  our  ablest  printers  are  the  proprietors  of 
these  small  offices. 

To  establish  an  independent  business  is  a  laudable  ambi- 
tion, but  the  zeal  that  prompts  to  such  a  step  is  not  always 
accompanied  with  proper  knowledge.      Not   every   man   so 
tempted  pauses  to  consider  whether  another  employer  is  really 
eeded  in  the   trade  ;    whether,  needed  or  not,  he   has   the 
capital  and  the  ability  to  maintain  his  foothold.     To  the  dis- 
passionate observer,  who  ponders  the  fact  that  in  these  350 
job  offices  not  half  the  hands  are  kept  in  constant  employ- 
ent,  it  is  quite  clear  that  there  are  offices  that  are  not  needed. 
As  business  does  not  come  to  such  offices,  they  have  to  seek  it. 
But  when  it  is  found,  it  can  be  had  only  by  underbidding. 
ere,  as  in  the  case  of  the  manager  of  the  stationer's  office, 
the  young  employer  seldom  knows  how  to  make  estimates. 
He  has  even  a  stronger  temptation  to  make  low  prices.     He 
mally  thinks  it  better  to  work  at  cost  than  not  to  work, 
is  common  mistake  is  that  he  cannot  calculate  cost,  and 
ally  works  for  less.     It  takes  many  months,  perhaps  years, 
fore  the  consequences  of  the  error  are  brought  home  to 
m.     He  works  hard,  but,  in  too  many  cases,  his  income  is 
ess  than  that  of  a  journeyman.     He  not  only  loses  himself, 


22 

but  is  the  cause  of  greater  losses  to  his  older  rivals.  He 
debases  the  prices  of  others  by  unsuccessful  estimates  for 
work  that  he  cannot  do. 

The  older  master-printers  have  made  frequent  attempts  to 
establish  a  greater  uniformity  of  price,  but  all  to  little  pur- 
pose. The  managers  and  novices  are  too  often  above  the 
advice  of  their  fellow-employers,  and  are  always  beyond  the 
control  of  the  Union.  They  can  neither  be  coaxed  nor  coerced 
to  refrain  from  a  competition  which  is  as  damaging  to  the 
journeymen  as  it  is  to  themselves  and  to  their  brother  em- 
ployers. So  long  as  there  are  more  printing  offices  in  the  city 
than  there  is  work  for,  so  long  we  may  expect  this  debase- 
ment of  prices. 

The  worst  feature  connected  with  this  overcrowding  of  the 
trade  is  that  it  has  degraded  the  Business.  The  custom  that 
should  come  to  one's  house  in  a  natural  way  is  begged  and 
scrambled  for  in  the  most  despicable  manner. 

By  far  the  larger  portion  of  the  small  job  work  of  this 
city,  of  such  kinds  as  can  be  done  on  treadle  presses,  is  now 
done  in  job  offices  in  which  boys  are  almost  exclusively  em- 
ployed. It  is  with  the  extremest  difficulty  that  any  office 
employing  men  can  offer  prices  for  this  class  of  work  that 
will  be  accepted. 

In  reply  to  these  undeniable  truths  concerning  the  reduced 
prices  of  employers,  the  journeymen  make  this  reply:  "It 
is  not  our  affair.  We  are  not  responsible  for  your  low  prices. 
You  must  keep  up  your  own  rates."  It  is  not  a  proper 
answer.  For  the  low  prices  now  ruling  in  this  city,  the 
workmen,  more  than  the  employers,  are  responsible.  The 
reckless  estimates  and  the  thoughtless  competition  that  have 
debased  prices  can,  in  at  least  two  out  of  every  three  cases, 
be  traced  to  men  who  have  but  recently  come  from  the  ranks 
of  the  journeymen,  and  who  are  thoroughly  saturated  with  the 
notion  that  the  business  is  profitable,  and  that  it  can  be 
made,  under  their  peculiar  management,  to  yield  even  greater 
profits. 

In  the  department  of  small  job  work,  the  larger  offices 
have  long  ago  retired  from  competition  with  the  small  ones, 
and  have  endeavored  to  establish  new  branches  of  business 


Vf 

I 


23 

r  which  skillful  men  and  large  machinery  must  be  employed, 
ere,  too,  unexpected  competition  has  been  developed. 

The  steam  lithographic  press  is  a  most  formidable  com- 
titor.     Introduced  within  three  years,  it  has  already  suc- 
ded  in  wresting  from  the  hands  of  printers  of  this  city 
rly  a  million  dollars  of  business.     It  is  but  the  beginning 
f  an  unknown  end.     With  increased  experience  in  the  use  of 
hese  machines,  and  especially  in  their  adaptation  to  small 
work,  we  may  safely  predict  that,  in  a  few  years,  mercantile 
lanks  printed  on  stone  will  be  as  cheap  and  as  common  as 
hose  done  from  type.     The  application  of  photo-lithography 
in  the  economical  reproduction  of  book  and  table  work  is  no 
longer  an  experiment  but  a  triumphant  success. 

The  other  competitor  is  the  cheaper  labor  of  foreign  coun- 
tries. Hitherto,  job  printers  have  felt  secure  against  outside 
influences.  It  has  been  said  that,  if  books  might  go  abroad, 
jobs  must  be  done  here.  It  is  a  great  mistake.  The  city  is 
thoroughly  canvassed  by  agents  of  foreign  printers.  Show 
cards,  illustrated  catalogues,  labels,  pamphlet  covers,  and 
even  billheads  and  cards,  are  now  done  abroad  at  prices  with 
which  no  American  can  compete.  The  value  of  this  foreign 
work  cannot  be  defined;  but  it  is  already  large  and  is  in- 
creasing. One  printing  house  in  London  has  thirty  presses 
n  constant  employment  on  American  orders.  There  are 
ther  printing  houses  in  the  same  city  that  do  a  large  amount 
f  business  in  this  country.  Large  orders  for  work  are  also 
nt  to  Paris,  Leipsic  and  Berlin.  This  work  goes  there,  not 
because  it  is  done  better,  but  because  it  is  so  much  cheaper. 
One  is  within  bounds  in  stating  that  there  goes  abroad,  from 
this  city  alone,  every  year,  job  work  enough  to  keep  three 
undred  men  employed.  We  have  the  skill,  the  men  and  the 
materials,  but,  at  present  prices,  they  cannot  be  used. 

This  part  of  the  subject  cannot  be  dismissed  without  calling 
kttention  to  the  inequality  in  the  ability  of  these  five  classes 
employing  printers  to  pay  the  proposed  increased  prices, 
'he  publishers  of  books,  magazines,  and   newspapers,  who 
>wn  and  manage  printing  offices,  are  in  the  receipt  of  ample 
icomes  from  the  profits  of  publishing.     To  this  class  the 


24 

addition  of  twenty  per  cent,  to  the  cost  of  labor  is  a  serious 
tax,  but  it  is  not  a  crushing  weight.  Manufacturers  of  a  book 
or  paper,  who  originate  the  work  and  direct  it  at  every  step, 
and  who  control  the  sale  and  fix  the  price,  have  the  power 
to  institute  nice  economies  in  all  the  branches,  so  that  they 
will  not  suffer  the  entire  loss  of  this  twenty  per  cent.  If 
composition  is  relatively  too  high,  they  can  reduce  cost  of 
paper  or  binding.  ,  In  many  ways  they  can  hedge  an  antici- 
pated loss.  Even  if  they  conceded  the  entire  master  printer's 
profit  to  meet  the  increased  price  of  composition,  it  would 
not  destroy  their  profit  on  other  branches  of  manufacture. 

The  book  or  job  printer  has  no  such  opportunities.  His 
work  is  done  to  order  only,  and  it  must  be  done  exactly  as 
agreed  on,  and  at  the  regular  current  rate.  He  makes  profit 
from  but  one  branch,  where  the  publisher  makes  his  from 
many  branches.  If  the  book  printer's  profits  on  labor  are 
encroached  on,  he  has  no  other  branch  that  will  aid  him  in 
bearing  the  weight.  He  is,  and  always  must  be,  unable  to 
pay  as  high  a  rate  for  labor  as  the  publisher. 

While  this  proposed  increase  of  twenty  per  cent,  is  a  crush- 
ing weight  to  the  old-established  book  or  job  printer,  it  is 
really  no  tax  at  all  to  that  printer's  most  formidable  city 
competitor.  The  small  job  office,  in  which  all  the  work  is 
done  by  the  proprietor  and  his  boys,  can  be  quite  indifferent 
to  any  advance  in  the  price  of  labor  that  may  be  ordained  by 
the  Union.  The  advance  may  be  a  real  benefit.  The  pro- 
prietor and  his  boys  can  maintain  the  old  rates,  while  the 
larger  offices  that  employ  men  are  obliged  to  add  thirty 
per  cent,  to  the  old  prices.  This  is  the  reason  why  the  pres- 
ent prices  of  small  job  work  are  substantially  the  same  as 
those  of  1862.  A  further  increase  of  rate  will  increase  the 
advantage  of  the  small  office.  Its  tendency  is  to  break  down 
printing  offices  of  the  middle  class,  and  to  increase  the  num- 
ber of  small  offices.  No  thoughtful  compositor,  who  deplores 
the  evils  suffered  by  the  trade  from  an  excess  of  boys,  can 
desire  a  multiplication  of  small  offices,  in  which  he  can  never 
find  employment — offices  that  are  the  real  nurseries  of  the 
boys  that  cut  down  his  wages  and  that  keep  him  out  of 
work  in  other  establishments. 


25 

The  unfair  manner  in  which  the  repeated  advances  in  prices 
ive  been  made,  by  discriminating  against' book  and  job  work, 
clearly  shown  in  the  annexed  table. 


v 

i 


Branch  of  Composition.  1862.  1870. 

Fob  and  Book  Work.  .Weekly  Wages. $11.00  $20.00  .82 

took  Work Piece  Rates* ...       .33  .50  .52 

[orning  Newspaper.. Weekly  Wages.    16.00  24.00  .50 

"          ..Piece  Rates 35  .50  .43 

Ivening  Newspaper..  Weekly  Wages.   12.00  20.00  .67 

..Piece  Rates 31  .45  .45 

''Average  of  Manuscript  and  Reprint,  for  matter  made-up. 

The  book  and  job  printer,  who  employs  men  only  by  the 
week,  has  to  pay  nearly  twice  as  large  a  percentage  as  does 
he  publisher  of  the  morning  newspaper.     The  newspaper 
ate  is  but  43  per  cent,  advance  on  old  prices,  while  that  of 
ihe  book  and  job  printer  is  82  per  cent.     The  relative  ability 
of  the  two  classes  to  pay  an  advance  would  be  inadequately 
stated  by  the  transposition  of  these  figures.     This  is  but  a 
sample  of  the  invidious  discrimination.     For  ten  hours'  day 
work  in  a  job  office,  the  rate  is  $20  a  week ;  for  eight  hours' 
night  work,  on  a  morning  paper,  $22.     For  time  work  done 
t  night,  the  job  printer  pays  50  cents  an  hour ;  for  the  same 
ork,  the  morning  or  evening  paper  pays  but  40  cents  per 
our.     The  Sunday  paper  hand  must  work  over  hours  on  Sat- 
rday  without  pay  ;  but  the  book  or  job  hand  must  work  one 
our  less.     This,  surely,  is  not  accident.     After  this  exposition 
policy,  it  is  not  surprising  to  find  that  the  movement  for 
vance  in  prices  is  levelled  at  the  book  and  job  offices,  and 
hat  the  newspaper  offices,  as  in  1869,  are  overlooked.     It  is 
b  enough  that  New  York  city — in  which  prices  are  highest, 
which  profits  are  least,  and  in  which  the  pressure  of  com- 
etition  is  greatest — should  be  selected  for  trying  the  experi- 
ent  of  eight  hours  and  higher  prices,  but  that  branch  of  the 
ade  in  the  city  which  is  least  able  to  afford  it  is  the  one 
at  is  first  picked  out  for  punishment. 

The  thoughtful  reader  will  see  that  the  complaints  of  both 
jmployers  and  employed  are  alike :  on  the  part  of  the  em- 


26 

ployers,  insufficient  work,  insufficient  profits,  unfair  competi- 
tion ;  on  the  part  of  the  employed,  irregular  work,  meagre 
earnings,  the  unfair  competition  of  boys.  There  is  certainly 
sufficient  cause  for  discontent,  but  how  shall  it  be  remedied  ? 

The  journeymen  propose  what  is  equivalent  to  a  general 
increase  of  prices.  For  it  is  admitted  by  them  that  the  effect 
of  the  proposed  reduction  in  the  hours  of  labor  will  soon  tend 
to  a  positive  increase  in  time  wages.  It  is  well  understood 
that  the  work  of  the  city  cannot  be  done  in  eight  hours. 
Nor  do  the  applicants  as  a  body  really  wish  to  strictly  confine 
the  day's  labor  to  eight  hours.  If  they  could  get  the  price 
of  overtime  for  the  added  two  hours,  at  the  rate  of  50  or  60 
cents  an  hour,  they  would  work  ten  hours  willingly.  This 
point  should  be  clearly  understood.  The  application  of  the 
workmen  is  not  so  much  to  shorten  hours,  as  to  increase 
wages.  The  increase  required  is  unusually  large.  If  20  or 
25  per  cent,  be  added  to  wages,  not  less  than  30  per  cent., 
perhaps  33  per  cent.,  must  be  added  to  the  prices  of  the  em- 
ployers. It  is  a  hazardous  experiment,  and  one  that  should 
be  well  considered  before  it  is  tried. 

To  ascertain  the  views  of  individual  employers  in  regard  to 
this  proposed  increase  of  prices,  and  to  elicit  other  pertinent 
facts,  the  following  circular  was  sent  to  every  known  book  and 
job  office  in  the  city : 

NEW  YORK,  June  25,  1872. 
to 

At  a  meeting  (held  at  the  Astor  House,  Friday,  June  21,  1872} 
of  a  Joint  Committee  of  the  Employers  and  Employed  in  the  trade  of 
Book  and  Job  Printing,  appointed  by  their  respective  societies  for  the 
purpose  of  considering  the  expediency  of  establishing  eight  hours  as  the 
limit  of  a  day's  labor,  and  of  increasing  the  rate  of  piece  work  twenty 
per  cent.,  it  was  decided,  as  a  necessary  preliminary,  that  the  Secretary  of 
the  Employers  be  directed  to  furnish  a  Report  on  the  State  of  the  Trade, 
to  be  submitted  to  the  next  meeting  of  the  Committee  for  its  consideration. 
As  the  question  of  Eight  Hours  and  Higher  Prices  affects  every 
person  connected  with  Printing,  it  is  hoped  that  every  Printer  and 
Publisher  will  see  the  importance  of  furnishing  the  Committee  with  the 
facts  upon  which  their  action  must  be  based. 


27 

The  answers  received  will  not  be  published.  It  is  proposed  to 
collect  the  facts  ami  figures  of  these  answers,  and  to  present  them  to  the 
Trade  only  in  the  form  of  a  condensed  general  statement. 

As  the  time  allowed  for  the  preparation  of  these  facts  is  short,  it 
is  earnestly  begged  that  answers  will  be  made  without  delay. 

Any  other  information  on  this  subject  not  included  in  these 
questions  will  be  thankfully  received. 

THEO.  L.  DE  VINNE, 

Secretary. 

COMMITTEE  OF  JOURNEYMEN.  COMMITTEE  OF  EMPLOYERS. 

M.  R.  WALSH,  -with  Geo.  F.  Nesbitt  &»  Co.  M.  B.  WYNKOOP,ofWynkoop&Hattenbeck. 

W.  PHILP,  with  Harper  &  Brothers.  E.  O.  JENKINS.    - 

R.  W.  COX,  with  Poole  &>  MacLanchlan.  R.  H.  SMITH,  of  Smith  &>  McDougall. 

A.  K.  GORE,  -with  New  York  Register.  JOHN  POLHEMUS. 

E.  B.  TUTTLE,  with  New  York  Herald.  S.  W.  GREEN. 

J.  A .  GANONG,  with  N.  Y.  Com.  Advertiser.  J.  J.  LITTLE,  ofLange,  Little  &  Hittman. 

J.  KELL  Y,  with  D.  Appleton  &  Co.  T.  L.  DE  VINNE,  of  Francis  Hart  &  Co. 

I. — What  is  the  average  number  of  compositors  employed  on  piece-work 
in  your  office  ? 

Men.  Boys. 

2. — What  were  their  average  earnings  in  1871  ? 

Men.  Boys. 

3. —  What  were  their  average  earnings  in  1868  ? 

Men.  Boys. 

4. — To  what  extent  are  you  affected  by  the  lower  prices  of  competitors  either 
in  or  out  of  the  city  ? 

5. — Can  you  furnish  an  estimate  of  the  annual  value  of  the  work  once  done 
in  your  office,  and  now  done  out  of  the  city  ? 

6. — At  the  established  rates  of  employers,  and  under  fair  economical  man- 
agement, what  is  your  estimate  of  the  employer's  profit  on  book 
composition  ?  On  book  presswork  ? 

7. — Could  you  pay  an  advance  of  twenty  per  cent,  on  piece  rates  out  of 
present  profits  ?  % 

8. — Would  your  customers  assent,  or  could  you  compel  their  assent,  to 
an  advance  of  twenty  per  cent,  or  more  on  present  prices  f 

9. — What  do  you  consider  the  reasons  of  the  present  depressed  condition  of 
the  printing  business  ? 

10.  —  What  do  you  propose  as  a  practicable  remedy  ? 


28 

To  Question  1  not  enough  answers  have  been  received  to 
justify  the  writer  in  offering  a  statement  of  the  number  of 
workmen  in  the  trade.  So  far  as  the  limited  replies  will 
warrant,  the  facts  are  at  singular  variance  with  Men.  B0ys. 
the  preconceived  theories.  The  proportion  of  8 
boys  to  men  in  the  large  book  and  job  offices  27  5 

is  singularly  small.  Eight  of  the  larger  book  15 
offices  make  returns  as  shown  in  the  margin.  7  1 

In  the  smaller  offices  there  are  more  boys  than  12 
men.  It  shows  the  more  difficult  nature  of  the  20 
work  in  the  larger  offices,  and  their  preference  14 
for  men  as  compositors.  52  3 

Questions  2  and  3  have  not  been  as  fully  answered  as  could 
be  desired.  The  following  table,  that  gives  a  contrast  of  the 
wages  of  some  offices,  will  be  instructive.  ISTI.  ises. 

But  two  offices  have  made  a  return  of  $16.51  $14.85 
higher  earnings  in  1871.  It  would  ap-  13.00  14.00 
pear  that  the  higher  rates  of  1871  really  10.92  11.93 
decreased  the  year's  earnings  of  the  piece  17.00  20.00 
compositor.  It  shows  an  increasing  22.00  25.00 
scarcity  of  work,  and  more  difficulty  in  14.00  14.00 
doing  that  work,  to  the  loss  of  both  em-  20.00  18.00 
ployer  and  employed.  It  is  a  fact  that  has  a  direct  bearing 
on  the  proposition  before  us.  If  the  slight  advance  of  1869 
decreased  earnings,  would  not  the  larger  advance  of  1872 
have  a  still  more  disastrous  effect  ? 

High  rates  do  not  necessarily  increase  earnings.  The 
marking-up  of  the  prices  of  goods  during  a  dull  season  is  not 
the  method  pursued  by  a  merchant  to  increase  his  income. 
It  should  not  be  our  method.  It  is  not  rates  but  earnings 
that  we  need.  It  is  the  marking-up  of  the  rates  that  will 
defeat  this  desire.  • 

To  Questions  4  and ^5  every  book  printer  has  replied 
emphatically  in  the  affirmative.  Two  job  printers  profess 
indifference  to  competition ;  but  all  the  others  agree  in  the 
statement  that  they  are  constantly  underbid  by  printers  in  and 
out  of  the  city.  The  estimates  of  probable  loss  of  work  are 
very  large,  but  they  are  too  incomplete  and  too  irregular  to 
be  put  in  the  form  of  a  tabular  statement.  A  careful  review 


29 

of  the  replies  to  these  inquiries,  and  of  the  facts  furnished  by 
publishers,  warrants  the  statement  that  more  than  half  of 
the  books  recently  published  in  this  city  were  composed  and 
stereotyped  in  other  cities.  Add  this  to  the  very  reasonable 
estimate  of  probable  loss  on  job  work,  and  it  will  be  seen  that 
the  work  of  New  York,  now  done  out  of  New  York,  is  more 
than  enough  to  keep  every  printer  in  it  fully  employed. 

These  are  some  of  the  answers  : 

Idle  about  half  the  time. — Find  it  very  difficult  to  get  a  fair  price. — I  get 
on  average  one  out  of  five  jobs  for  which  I  estimate ;  the  invariable  answer 
is,  I  can  get  it  done  lower. — Two  of  my  best  customers  send  their  work  to 
Buffalo,  another  sends  to  Europe;  many  others  go  to  New  England. — 
$10,000  of  work  once  done  by  me  is  now  done  out  of  the  city. — Three-fourths 
of  the  work  offered  I  have  to  decline  for  insufficiency  of  price. — Can  do  no 
work  whatever  that  my  customers  can  wait  long  enough  to  get  done  in  other 
cities  where  prices  are  cheaper. — I  have  lost  one-fourth  of  my  business. — 
In  every  estimate  I  give  I  have  to  consider  the  alternative  of  the  work  going 
out  of  the  city. — Am  offered  more  than  twice  the  work  I  do,  but  can't  accept 
it  at  the  price. — I  do  nothing  but  troublesome  work,  upon  which  neither  my- 
self nor  the  compositor  makes  wages. — All  the  good  work  goes  out  of  the 
city.— Lost  last  month  one  job  of  $3,000,  that  went  out  of  the  city.— Have  to 
do  work  at  just  above  cost  or  not  do  it  at  all If  I  could  work  at  the  East- 
ern rates,  I  could  do  twice  the  business. — After  long  trial  I've  given  up 
competing  with  country  offices,  to  the  loss  of  half  our  business. — Steam  litho- 
graphic presses  are  now  doing  a  large  portion  of  my  former  business. — I  can 
get  work  done  by  other  printers  cheaper  than  I  can  do  it  in  my  own  office. — 
Competition  has  reduced  our  profits  to  a  mere  nothing. — More  than  half  our 
composition  has  been  lost  to  us. — We  have  lost  all  the  plain  composition 
we  once  had. — My  customers  get  composition  and  press-work  combined,  in 
inland  towns,  at  less  rates  than  I  can  furnish  composition  alone. 

To  Question  6  there  is  great  disagreement  in  responses. 
The  highest  figure  given  is  "25  per  cent.,  less  the  depreciation 
and  contingent  expenses."  It  is  evidently  the  response  of 
one  who  has  not  deduced  this  calculation  from  his  account 
books.  One  of  the  largest  houses,  well  known  in  the  trade 
for  the  ability  of  its  management,  says  that  it  has  made  no 
profit  whatever  on  book  composition  for  three  years.  Another 
house,  equally  noted  for  its  care  and  accuracy,  puts  the 
profits  at  7  per  cent.  The  majority  of  responses  make  the 
returns  of  10  and  12  per  cent.  The  responses  appended  indi- 
cate the  general  sentiment  of  the  trade. 


30 

Book-work  pays  too  poorly  for  me  to  meddle  with  it. — Don't  set  type  ;  can 
get  it  done  cheaper.— Book- work  is  the  poorest  kind  of  work  •  it  is  not  worth 
trying  to  keep. — Do  no  book- work  now ;  gave  it  up,  after  long  trial,  as  ut- 
terly unprofitable. — Consider  composition  only  as  a  feeder  to  press- work; 
have  never  yet  been  able  to  find  any  profit  in  it. 

To  Question  7  there  is  a  unanimous  negative.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  add  a  word  of  comment. 

Most  decidedly  not. — Impossible  to  get  any  advance,  or  pay  any. — Might 
get  a  slight  advance  on  some  kinds  of  work,  but  not  enough  to  pay  20  per 
cent. — No  !  No  !  (in  nearly  all  replies). — Could  not  get  nor  give  5  per  cent. 
— We  don't  make  20  per  cent,  profit,  and  could  not  pay  it. — Impossible  to  get 
or  give. — It  would  break  us  to  pay  it;  it  would  lose  us  our  business  to  try  to 
get  it. — Absolutely  ridiculous  to  ask  such  questions. — Certainly  not. — A  very 
hazardous  step  to  try. — Any  advance  either  in  wages  or  prices  is  impossible. — 
Customers  would  be  great  fools  to  pay  any  advance,  when  they  can  get  their 
work  done  so  much  cheaper  in  inland  towns  or  abroad. — A  silly  experiment — 
one  that  I  won't  try. — If  I  compel  my  customer  to  pay  this  advance  he  will 
do  it  but  once  or  twice ;  he  will  take  his  work  away  to  cities  where  it  can 
be  done  cheaper.  If  I  get  it  back  again,  it  will  be  at  a  still  lower  price  than 
he  now  pays. — Not  one  customer  would  comply:  we  should  only  lose  the 
work. 

To  Question  8  three  answers  have  been  received,  in  which 
the  writers  state  substantially  that  they  object  to  any  advance, 
and  do  not  admit  its  necessity;  but  that  they  would  try  to  secure 
it  if  it  was  adopted.  All  other  employers  have  replied  that 
they  could  not  get  the  advance.  Most  of  them  have  made 
this  statement  in  the  most  emphatic  manner. 

Many  of  the  leading  publishers  of  the  city  have  been 
consulted  with  reference  to  their  ability  to  pay  the  proposed 
advance,  All  of  them  say  that  it  is  impossible.  They  agree 
in  saying  that  such  an  advance  can  have  no  other  effect  than  to 
drive  still  more  work  out  of  the  city.  They  say  that  they  are 
now  paying  an  unfair  proportion  of  their  receipts  for  the  work 
done  here.  In  corroboration  of  this  assertion,  they  point  to  the 
following  facts :  the  pamphlet  or  magazine  that  was  sold  for 
25  cents  in  1862  is  now  sold  for  35  cents;  the  duodecimo,  in 
cloth,  that  was  sold  for  $1.25  or  $1.50  in  1862  is  now  sold  for 
but  $1.50  or  $1.75.  These  prices,  which  are  as  high  as  they 
can  get,  are  at  an  average  advance  of  less  than  40  per  cent., 
while  the  New  York  employing  printers'  charges  are  at  an 
average  advance  of  not  less  than  65  per  cent. 


31 

Question  9  has  excited  extraordinary  responses.  The  lead- 
ing reasons  assigned  by  book  printers  are  : 

Anxiety  of  too  many  employers  to  keep  machinery  in  motion,  even  when 
no  profit  arises  therefrom. — Lack  of  organization. — Drummers. — Unfair  com- 
petition.— Stationers. — Ignorant  workmen  who  know  nothing  about  making 
estimates. — Foreign  competition. — The  Eight-hour  movement. — Too  many 
offices. — Reckless  competition. — Too  high  price  of  labor,  which  drives  work 
abroad  and  to  small  offices. — Unreasonably  high  price  of  labor. — Too  many 
middlemen. — High  price  of  materials  and  high  labor  (by  many  persons). — The 
poor  quality  and  disproportionately  high  price  of  composition  both  by  piece  and 
on  time. — Too  high  wages. — Too  many  offices. — Poor  workmen. — Canvassing 
journeymen  and  stationers  who  do  not  understand  the  business. — High  wages 
and  poor  work. — Too  many  printers. — Ignorant  workmen  who  solicit  orders. — 
Interference  of  workmen,  as  drummers,  with  the  established  prices;  foreign 
competition. — High  wages  and  high  prices  of  types  here ;  low  wages  and 
low  materials  abroad. — Too  abundant  labor  of  inferior  grades,  which  is  the 
bane  of  both  skilled  workman  and  his  employer.  If  the  skilled  employer  did 
not  have  to  compete  on  so  large  a  portion  of  his  work  with  the  inferior  class, 
he  could  afford  to  pay  more,  and  could  get  more.  One  of  the  evils  to  be  feared 
from  this  movement  is  that  it  will  stimulate  this  kind  of  competition. 

To  Question  10  not  one  response  has  been  received  that 
proposes  eight  hours  as  a  practicable  remedy,  not  one  that 
advises  or  assents  to  any  advance  in  wages.  On  the  contrary, 
there  are  many  who  do  not  hesitate  to  state  that  the  only 
remedy  is  an  increase  of  hours  or  a  reduction  of  wages,  as 
may  be  gathered  from  a  review  of  the  annexed  responses. 

Better  workmen  (by  many  persons). — Refuse  to  work  for  middlemen; 
refuse  to  do  work  or  give  commissions  to  journeymen  printers. — Discharge 
men ;  do  less  work,  and  do  it  ourselves. — Reduce  wages  (by  many  persons). — 
Kefuse  work  to  every  man  who  does  not  understand  his  business. — Sell  out. — 
Take  the  jours  into  partnership,  and  make  'em  pay  their  share  of  the  losses. — 
Cut  down  wages,  especially  on  plain  work,  and  get  some  of  lost  work  back. 
— Men's  wages  for  men's  work  ;  boy's  wages  for  boy's  work. — Work  ten  hours 
a  day,  and  longer. — A  strike  on  the  part  of  employers. — Compromise  (one 
party  only). — Reduce  wages  10  per  cent. — Kill  the  eight-hour  movement. — 
An  agreement  with  the  workmen  in  every  office  that  their  wages  shall  depend 
on  the  profits  of  the  office. 

This  is  the  substance  of  the  responses.  It  is  enough  to 
show  that  employers  are  clearly  of  opinion  that  Eight  Hours 
and  Higher  Prices  are  impracticable. 

It  is  now  time  to  ask  the  question — Is  this  advance  in 
prices  really  needed  ?  In  all  previous  applications  for  higher 


32 

wages  the  demand  has  been  justified  by  necessity.  When  the 
premium  on  gold  was  steadily  advancing,  and  all  the  necessa- 
ries of  life  were  growing  dearer, .  there  was  reason  in  the 
demand  that  wages  should  be  increased.  For  this  advance 
there  is  no  such  claim.  It  is  not  maintained  that  the  expenses 
of  living  are  higher  now  than  they  were  in  1869.  They  are, 
no  doubt,  greater  than  we  desire,  but  they  are  not  increasing, 
as  they  were  in  1863  and  1864,  in  every  direction.  That 
compositors  should  desire  more  wages  is  but  natural ;  that  an 
increase  of  wages  would  be  of  benefit  to  them  is  admitted; 
but  that  men  who  are  now  in  the  regular  receipt  of  $20  a 
week  and  upward,  are  driven  by  necessity  to  insist  on  higher 
wages,  is  not  the  belief  of  employers.  No  evidence  has  been 
presented  that  would  lead  to  such  a  conclusion. 

This  movement  for  eight  hours  and  higher  prices  did  not 
originate  with  the  printers  of  the  city.  It  is  an  epidemic. 
There  is  strike  in  the  air.  It  is  one  of  the  many  plans  for 
embittering  the  relations  of  American  employers  and  employed 
for  which  we  are  indebted  to  the  old  world.  It  is  by  foreign 
emissaries  and  foreign  workmen  that  the  strikes  and  the  agita- 
tions in  other  trades  of  our  city  have  been  fomented.  It  is  by 
the  subsidy  of  a  foreign  trade  union  that  one  of  our  largest 
associations  of  mechanics  hoped  to  carry  a  strike.  It  is  from 
the  apostles  of  the  International  and  the  Commune  that 
American  mechanics  have  been  unwittingly  receiving  teach- 
ings and  orders.  Every  employing  printer  who  has  taken  the 
trouble  to  make  personal  inquiry  in  his  own  office,  is  well 
satisfied  that  the  majority  of  the  compositors  do  not  favor  the 
movement.  They  have  joined  it  with  faint  heart,  if  not  with 
spoken  protest,  and  only  from  a  mistaken  sense  of  fraternal 
obligation. 

There  is  one  exception.  The  book  compositors  of  the 
city,  whose  earnings  never  reach  $20,  are  most  seriously  dis- 
contented. It  is  not  because  the  present  rates  are  too  low. 
They  are  higher  than  those  of  the  evening,  and  nearly  as  high 
as  those  of  the  morning  papers.  It  is  not  because  the  Union 
has  not  carefully  protected  their  interests.  The  present  scale 
of  prices  is  filled  with  safeguards  for  their  benefit.  All  to 
little  purpose.  The  morning  paper  hand  averages  $27  ;  the 


: 


33 

vening  paper  hand  at  least  $22  ;  but  the  book  hand  does 
ot  average  $14  per  week.  This  is  a  miserable  pittance.  The 
unreflecting  observer,  who  knows  nothing  of  the  circum- 
tances  of  the  case,  at  once  rushes  to  the  conclusion  that 
he  employer  is  in  a  false  position  in  not  seeing  to  it  that  the 
iece  compositor  is  better  paid.  It  is  worth  the  while  to  look 
to  these  circumstances  :  is  it  the  compositor  or  the  employer 
ho  is  in  a  false  position  ? 

The  scanty  earnings  of  book  compositors  are  attributed 
y  workmen  to  the  bad  management  of  the  office.     Is  this 
he  only  reason  ?      It  is  well  known  to  all  printers  that  there 
re  compositors  who  are  slow  ;  that  the  trade  is  full  of  men 
who,  on  good  work,  and  with  every  opportunity  for  making 
speed,  cannot  earn  $14  a  week,  while  others  on  the  same 
ork  will  make  $20  a  week  and  more.     The  trade  is  full  of 
men  who  can  do  nothing   but   set  type.     They  stand  idle 
daily,  in  and  around  offices  that  have  matter  to  make-up  and 
mpose,  jobs  to  set,  tables  to  arrange,  but  they  cannot  do  the 
work.     There  are  also   other  men  who  will   not  work  ten 
hours  when  they  have  the  work  to  do.     As  piece-hands,  they 
consider   they   have    the   right  to  come  late   and  go  early. 
Here  are  good  reasons  why  their  earnings  should  be  inferior. 
To  compositors  like  these  the  higher  rates  would  be  of 
ittle  benefit.    The  advance  of  twenty  per  cent,  would  be  but 
trifle  in  comparison  with  their  expectations.     At  best,  it 
could  but  raise  their  earnings  to  $18  a  week,  which  would 
be,  as  before,  twenty-five  per  cent,  less  than  the  wages  of  the 
time-workman.     To  enable  them  to  earn  by  the  piece  $24  a 
week,  as  is  desired,  the  rate  would  have  to  be  raised  to  nearly 
$1.00  per  1000  ems.    This  is  impossible.    But  even  if  it  were 
conceded,  it  would  not  end  the   matter.     Give  the  inferior 
workman  $24  for  work  on  time,  and  the  man  of  skill  would 
insist  on  $30  for  his  superiority.     Let  this  be  conceded.    A  few 
weeks  or  months,  and  the  inferior  man  will  move  for  equality 
of  pay  with  the  best — not  as  a  matter  of  favor,  but  as  one  of 
right.     Here  we  begin  to  see  the  true  motive  of  all  this  dis- 
content, as  well  as  the  charming  equity  of  a  so-called  minimum 
price  for  time  work. 

The  slow,  idle  or  unskilled  workmen,  who  earn  so  little  by 
the  piece,  or  who  have  a  precarious  employment  by  time, 


34 

are  the  most  clamorous  in  their  demands  for  higher  wages. 
The  fact  that  they  earn  so  little  is  repeated  again  and  again, 
as  if  it  were  the  end  of  all  argument,  even  when  they  are 
paid  the  same  rate  and  have  the  same  opportunity  as  men 
who  earn  double.  The  undeniable  fact  that  they  do  little 
work,  and  do  it  poorly,  they  consider  as  quite  immaterial. 
"A  working  man  ought  to  have  $20  a  week,  anyhow," 
was  the  remark  made  by  a  compositor  three  years  ago  to 
his  employer.  "Not  if  he  don't  earn  it,"  was  the  answer. 
"  I  can  pay  you  only  by  the  same  rule  by  which  I  am 
paid — which  is,  not  for  the  time  you  spend  on  the  work, 
but  for  the  work  that  you  do.  If  you  can't  or  won't  do  more 
in  ten  hours  than  other  men  do  in  five,  you  are  not  entitled  to 
more  than  $]  0  a  week."  And  what  was  the  response  ?  u  I 
don't  know  anything  about  your  affairs.  1  only  know  that  I 
ought  to  get  $20  a  week,  the  same  as  the  other  men.  I  need 
the  money  just  as  much,  and  can't  live  on  less."  This  man 
was  not  specially  unintelligent,  and  his  views  would  not 
deserve  repeating  if  they  were  not  largely  representative. 
They  are  the  avowed  doctrines  of  the  International. 

The  abstract  right  of  every  man  to  receive  from  society  a 
comfortable  living,  when  he  has  complied  with  society's  con- 
ditions, which  no  one  will  deny,  is  muddily  mixed  up  with 
the  notion  that  he  has  a  right  to  exact  good  wages  of  every 
man  who  may  be  his  employer,  whether  he  has  earned  them  or 
not — whether  the  employer  can  afford  to  pay  them  or  not.  For 
the  credit  of  the  trade,  it  is  cheerfully  confessed  there  are 
few  compositors  who  would  undertake  to  defend  this  absurd 
proposition  in  its  full  breadth,  but  there  are  many  who  have 
the  idea  that  they  are  unfairly  dealt  with  in  the  matter  of 
wages.  Who  or  what  it  is  that  is  responsible  for  their  low 
earnings  does  not  clearly  appear.  At  one  time  it  is  banks 
and  speculators  ;  at  another,  tariffs  and  legislators  ;  but  there 
is  a  substantial  agreement,  in  nearly  all  cases,  that  capitalists 
and  employers  are  the  offenders. 

Some  years  ago  the  writer  had  occasion  to  remark  in  a 
newspaper,  that  it  was  the  belief  of  many  journeymen 
printers  that  the  profits  of  employers  were  too  large,  and 
were  acquired  by  the  retention  of  an  unfair  share  of  the  com- 


\j( 

; 

th 

. 


35 

ositors'  labor.     For  making  this  statement  he  was  sharply 
buked.    He  was  assured  that  compositors  were  not  socialists ; 
hat  they  respected  the  rights  of  capital  and  of  property  ; 
ey  did  but  ask  for  their  own — no  more,  no  less.  But  the  state- 
ent  that  was  repelled  as  so  obnoxious  seven  years  ago,  is 
ow  made  in  the  frankest  manner.     Employers  are  told  that 
eir  profits  are  unreasonable,  and  that  there  should  be  a  more 
uitable  apportionment ;  that  workmen  will  never  be  satisfied 
ritil  they  get  a  much  larger  share  of  the  rewards  of  labor, 
his  larger  share,  this  fair  share,  is  never  stated  in  figures, 
ere  are  few  of  these  claimants  who  would  define  this  share 
at   less    than   an   advance    of    one-fourth    on   their    present 
earnings;   there  are  those  who   think  that  the  relations  of 
capital  and  labor  could  be  so  adjusted  that  they  would  receive 
ne-half  more  that  they  now   get.     The  ability  of  the  em- 
loyer  to  pay — or,  at  least,  the  ability  of  the  business  to  earn — 
the  advanced  rate,  is  never  doubted.     The  omnipotence  of 
e  Union,  when  associated  with  employers,  to  revolution- 
ize laws  of  trade  and  to  compel  customers  to  pay  higher  rates 
is  considered  as  beyond  question.     It  is  the  vague  but  wide- 
spread notion  of  the   ability   of  the   business   to   pay  large 
profits  that  has  filled  our  city  with  small  printing  offices,  and 
that  has  induced  so  many  amateur  employers  to  tamper  so 
ashly  with  established  prices,  to  their  own  injury.     There 
amateur  employers  (in  the  first  year  of  their  business  life 
only)  who  know  that  they  will  make  50  per  cent,  on  all  the 
work  they  do ;  there  are  canvassing  journeymen  who  ask  for 
commissions  of  25  and  even  40  per  cent,  with  most  charming 
ingenuousness.     These  exhibitions  of  faith  are  the  legitimate 
fruits  of  a  pervading  delusion. 

Most  employers  consider  this  belief  on  the  part  of  work- 
men as  the  evidences  of  ignorance  and  prejudice  that  are 
unworthy  of  consideration,  and  disdain  reply.  It  certainly 
cannot  be  approached  by  ordinary  methods  of  argument. 
Assertion  can  be  met  only  by  counter  assertion  and  denial. 
It  is  enough  to  say  that  there  is  no  large  book  or  job  office  in 
this  city  that  does  or  can  yield  an  income  that  could  pay 
the  journeyman  the  ideal  fair  share  of  which  he  dreams. 
Take  the  year's  net  receipts  of  any  such  office ;  deduct  the 


rasl 
are 


36 

legal  interest  on  money  invested  ;  set  aside  a  proper  sum  for 
depreciation  of  material ;  allow  for  the  services  of  the  mana- 
gers only  at  their  merchantable  value ; — the  remainder  would 
be  pitiably  small.  Divided  pro  rata  among  the  employed  of 
the  office,  it  would  never  yield  five  dollars  a  week,  often  not 
one  dollar  a  week.  The  principle  of  partnership,  rigidly 
applied,  would  often  reduce  earnings.  The  fair  and  equitable 
share  of  the  return  of  labor,  so  far  from  adding  one-fourth 
or  one-half  to  their  incomes,  would  seem  almost  too  con- 
temptible for  notice. 

The  annexed  advertisement,  from  the  New  York  Herald  of 
July  14,  1872,  is  to  the  point. 

(JjnnA  CASH  WILL  BUY  TWO  ORIGINAL  SHARES  OF  THE  JOUR- 
tlDt/t/U  neymen  Printers'  Co-operative  Association  (dividends  included) ; 
$200  each  original  cost;  has  been  in  existence  over  five  years.  Address 
J.  S.,.&c. 

This  is  an  office  that  has  been  exclusively  under  the  jour- 
neymen's control.  It  has  able  workmen;  it  is  creditably 
managed,  and  has  good  standing  in  the  trade ;  yet  the  stock- 
holder virtually  offers  to  sell  out  at  cost,  with  simple  interest 
added.*  Can  the  workmen  in  this  office  claim  that  they  do 
not  receive  their  fair  share  of  the  profits  of  labor  ? 

Here  is  the  present  impracticability  of  our  schemes  for  co- 
operative industry.  The  employing  book  and  job  printers, 
who  have  frequently  discussed  this  topic,  would  prefer  to 
make  engagements  by  which  the  pay  of  labor  would  be  deter- 
mined by  the  profits  of  labor.  The  great  stumbling  block  is 
the  paltriness  and  the  irregularity  of  the  profits.  Sooner 
than  accept  the  new  duties  and  responsibilities,  the  inferior 
workman,  who  earns  less  than  $14  a  week,  would  prefer  the 
chance  of  bettering  his  condition  by  a  strike. 

The  position  of  this  inferior  workman,  an  annoyance  to  all 
classes  in  all  trades,  is  probably  greater  in  printing  than  in  any 
other.  He  needs  protection  continually.  He  never  gets 
enough.  The  good  workman  can  take  care  of  himself  with- 
out help.  The  superior  workman  always  receives  extra  pay 
and  special  favor,  without  intervention  of  the  Union  or  the 

*  This  selection  of  an  example  is  made  only  because  it  has  already  been  pub- 
lished. It  is  a  fair  illustration  of  the  profits  of  the  business — of  the  merchant- 
able value  of  the  average  book  and- job  printing  office  in  New  York. 


37 

State.  But  the  inferior  workman  is  continually  clamoring  for 
higher  rates  and  more  legislation.  It  is  for  his  sake  that  the 
Union  fills  the  scale  of  prices  with  vexatious  restrictions.  It 
is  for  his  benefit  that  legislators  are  bored  with  applications 
for  eight-hour  and  apprenticeship  laws.  That  he  may  have 
the  slender  chance  of  earning  two  or  three  dollars  a  week 
extra,  prices  must  be  put  so  high  that  thousands  of  dollars' 
worth  of  work  is  driven  out  of  the  city.  It  is  largely  by  his 
instigation  that  the  trade  is  harassed  with  quarrels  with  em- 
ployers. That  he  may  receive  the  "  minimum  wages" — a 
charming  phrase,  that  really  means  a  certain  sum  of  money 
for  an  uncertain  amount  of  work — the  better  workman  must 
virtually  forego  the  superior  pay  to  which  he  is  entitled,  and 
must  unite  with  the  employer  in  surrendering  a  portion  of 
rightful  earnings.  For  this  is  the  only  way,  practically,  in 
which  minimum  time  wages  ever  were  or  ever  will  be  paid. 

It  has  been  too  rashly  assumed  that  the  unfortunate 
condition  of  the  man  who  earns  but  $14  a  week  is  due  to  the 
fact  that  the  trade  or  the  employer  puts  itself  in  a  false  posi- 
tion when  it  refuses  or  evades  the  payment  of  full  wages.  Is 
this  true  ?  Does  not  the  man  put  himself  in  a  false  position 
when  he  attempts  to  work  at  a  trade,  or  a  branch  of  a  trade, 
that  he  understands  most  imperfectly  ?  What  right  has  he  to 
the  full  wages  of  an  expert? 

To  allude  to  the  incompetency  of  the  average  compositor 
at  once  provokes  the  journeyman  to  this  retort  :  "  It  is  your 
own  fault.  If  you  indentured  apprentices,  as  employers  used 
to,  and  taught  boys  their  trades,  there  would  be  fewer  bad 
workmen."  This  bold  assertion  needs  examination.  It  is  a 
begging  of  the  question  to  assert  that  an  indentured  appren- 
tice must  be  a  good  or  even  a  fair  printer.  One  must  look 
deeper  than  this  for  the  source  of  this  trouble.  Seventy  years 
ago  every  printer  was,  of  necessity,  a  book  printer.  There 
were  few  newspapers  that  were  not  attachments  to  book  or 
job  offices.  Job  work,  of  course,  always  existed,  but  without 
job  type  or  presses  it  was  but  a  sorry  business.  As  then 
practiced,  the  three  branches  of  the  trade  were  equally  familiar 
to  almost  all  compositors. 

Times  have  changed.  Book  work  is  no  more  the  first,  but 
the  last  on  the  list.  There  are  more  newspaper  offices  and 


38 

newspaper  compositors  than  in  the  other  two  branches  com- 
bined. The  value  of  the  product  of  job  offices  far  exceeds 
that  of  the  book  offices.  The  three  branches  are  entirely 
distinct.  The  boy  who  is  taught  the  trade  in  one  office, 
learns  the  branch  there  practiced,  and  no  other.  The  news- 
paper compositor  cannot  be  an  expert  book  hand ;  nor  can 
the  book  hand  be  a  good  job  printer. 

Plain  composition  is  the  only  work  that  piece  compositors 
can  do  with  equal  facility  in  all  branches.  In  the  newspaper 
branch  this  is  about  all  that  is  required  ;  in  the  book  office  it 
is  but  a  part  of  the  work  ;  in  the  job  office  it  is  not  half  the 
work.  Further  detail  is  unnecessary.  It  is  obvious  that  if  a 
man  accepts  a  situation  outside  of  the  branch  in  which  he  was 
educated,  he  works  to  his  own  or  to  his  employer's  loss. 
Here  is  another  reason  why  many  men  working  in  book  offices 
earn  so  little.  It  is  the  workman,  and  not  his  employer,  who 
is  in  a  false  position. 

To  do  work  effectively  on  the  newspapers,  one  of  the  old 
rules  of  the  trade  had  to  be  abolished.  The  office  had  to 
make  up  all  the  matter.  The  necessity  for  it  was  so  obvious 
that  it  has  never  been  the  occasion  of  dispute.  It  was,  how- 
ever, the  first  step  in  a  system  that  has  been  the  source  of 
endless  disputes  in  book  offices.  The  compositor  who  learned 
his  trade  in  a  newspaper  office  had  never  been  taught  to  make 
up  book  pages  or  to  impose  forms.  The  book  office  has 
been  compelled  to  do  it  for  him.  For  the  same  reason,  it  has 
been  obliged  to  reserve  the  composition  of  title-pages  and 
neatly-displayed  advertisements.  To  do  the  work  with 
propriety,  as  one  must  do  in  the  face  of  active  competition, 
it  has  been  found  necessary  to  give  this  and  like  work  only 
to  experts.  The  field  of  the  book  compositor  has  consequently 
been  shrinking  into  narrower  limits.  As  the  trade  is  now 
practiced,  the  average  book  compositor  does  nothing  but  set 
type.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  believe  that  he  ever  will  do 
more.  The  tendency  of  work  in  all  trades  is  to  nicer  division 
of  labor.  There  are  many  reasons  why  this  is  to  be  regretted, 
both  for  the  interest  of  employer  and  employed  ;  but  we  may 
be  sure  that  the  system  will  never  be  changed.  One  will 
have  to  accommodate  himself  to  facts  and  circumstances  that 
he  cannot  control. 


30 

Unfortunately  for  the  compositor  of  this  class,  the  part  of 
the  trade  at  which  he  works  is  one  in  which  the  rudiments 
are  most  quickly  acquired  by  the  novice.  Any  intelligent 
boy  or  girl  can  soon  learn  to  set  type,  not  well,  it  is  true, 
but  at  such  a  cheaper  rate  as  to  reconcile  an  employer  to  the 
imperfections  of  the  work. 

There  is  probably  no  one  who  has  a  higher  estimate  than 
the  writer,  of  the  skill,  experience  and  intelligence  that  are 
required  to  constitute  a  thorough  printer.  The  trade  is  not 
to  be  learned  in  one  year,  nor  yet  always  in  seven  years. 
But  a  knowledge  of  the  art  of  setting  type  is  not  a  knowledge 
of  the  trade.  '  We  may,  by  courtesy  or  from  interest,  call 
the  mere  type  setter  a  printer,  but  it  does  not  alter  the 
fact,  that  the  skill  or  knowledge  he  has  acquired  is  so  slight 
that  the  boy  or  girl  of  a  year's  practice  can  do  his  work. 

There  is  probably  no  trade  in  which  boys  are  such  formi- 
dable competitors  to  men  as  in  letter-press  printing.  No 
carpenter  undertakes  to  build  a  house,  no  machinist  constructs 
machines,  not  even  a  tailor  or  a  shoemaker  can  attempt  to 
carry  on  business  almost  exclusively  with  boys.  In  all  these 
and  other  trades  the  journeymen  may  think  that  there  is  an 
excess  of  boys,  but  they  never  exist  in  such  proportion  as  in 
printing.  It  is  a  notorious  fact  that  this  city  is  full  of  offices  in 
which  three-fourths  of  the  work  is  done  by  boys.  It  is  equally 
notorious  that  the  cheaper  labor  of  our  country  rivals  is 
always  that  of  boys  or  girls ;  that  a  very  large  proportion, 
probably  more  than  half,  of  the  plain  reprint  composition 
done  in  this  country  is  done  by  minors,  and  done  acceptably. 

Compositors  have  always  refused  to  acknowledge  the 
equity  of  this  competition.  The  fa'ct  that  the  boy  can  do  the 
man's  work  is  to  them  quite  immaterial.  They  consider  that 
they  have  a  prescriptive  right  to  consider  composition  in  all 
its  details  as  men's  work  exclusively,  and  thereby  entitled  to 
men's  full  wages.  They  adhere  as  rigidly  as  they  can  to  all 
the  antique  usages  of  the  trade  when  the  necessity  for  them 
no  longer  exists  ;  they  refuse  to  see  that  daily  newspapers  and 
steam  presses  and  the  art  of  stereotyping  have  completely  revo- 
lutionized the  business.  They  insist  on  having  all  the  rights 
and  privileges  of  the  old-school  book  compositor  even  when 
they  admit  they  do  not  possess  his  qualifications.  They  refuse 


40 

to  do  any  work  at  less  than  the  full  price   of  the  expert 
workman. 

Nevertheless,  the  work  is  done.  The  double-leaded  reprints 
go  out  of  the  city  to  be  done  by  girls,  or  are  kept  in  the  city 
and  are  done  by  two-thirders  and  by  boys.  The  catalogues 
and  table  work,  often  more  profitable  than  work  at  single  price, 
that  men  refuse  to  do  at  less  than  price-and-a-half,  or  double 
price,  declined  by  the  large  offices,  go  to  the  smaller  ones, 
and  are  done  by  boys  at  less  than  single  price.  The  small 
job  work  that  the  large  job  office  has  to  decline,  as  not  paying 
the  actual  cost  of  men's  labor,  is  also  taken  up  by  the  smaller 
ones,  and  is  done  by  boys.  The  competitors  both  of  journey- 
men and  of  established  employers  are  really  boys.  It  is 
difficult  to  say  which  of  the  two  classes  suffers  most — the 
journeymen  or  the  employers.  Both  of  them  are  not  only 
losing  work,  but  making  competitors. 

It  is  of  little  use  for  any  employer  or  any  journeyman  to 
quarrel  with  these  facts.  No  amount  of  denunciation  or  com- 
bination on  the  part  of  employers,  nor  of  resolutions  by  trade 
unions,  nor  of  apprenticeship  laws  by  legislators,  will  ever 
make  any  change.  If  it  is  found  that  the  boy  can  do  more 
economically  the  work  that  has  been  done  by  a  man,  the  boy 
will  do  it.  The  buyer  of  labor  can  no  more  be  prevented  froni 
getting  it  at  the  cheaper  rate,  than  the  workman  can  be  pre- 
vented from  buying  what  he  needs  in  the  cheapest  market. 

It  is  of  as  little  use  to  refuse  to  recognize  this  state  of  affairs. 
This  has  been  the  policy  of  the  trade  for  years,  but  the  time 
has  come  when  it  recognizes  us.  When  the  unskilled  book 
compositor  and  his  employer,  and  the  job  printer  also,  are  idle 
half  the  time,  refusing  work  because  it  is  below  the  proper 
rate, — when  this  refused  work  is  greedily  picked  up  and  is 
done  acceptably  by  boys  in  and  out  of  the  city, — when  our 
mutual  refusal  to  reduce  prices  seems  to  have  no  other  effect 
than  that  of  enabling  others  to  reduce  them,  and  to  overstock 
the  trade  with  boys — it  is  high  time  that  we  comprehend  this 
altered  state  of  affairs.  When  the  work  of  our  offices  and  our 
city  is  slipping  away,  both  to  the  injury  of  those  who  lose  and 
those  who  take  it,  it  is  time  that  we  asked  ourselves  this 
question  :  Are  we  right  in  insisting  on  men's  wages  for  boys' 
work  ?  Does  it  benefit  ourselves  or  any  one  'else  ? 


41 

The  true  source  of  the  troubles  of  employers  about  prices, 
and  of  compositors  about  wages,  may  be  found  in  the  persistent 
attempts  of  both  parties  to  get  men's  wages  for  boys'  work. 
Should  it  be  a  matter  for  wonder,  that  in  trying  to  reverse  the 
natural  laws  of  trade  defeat  is  as  sure  as  fate  ? 

The  correctness  of  this  view  of  the  cause  of  low  wages 
will  be  shown  quite  as  clearly  by  a  glance  at  the  condition  of 
those  departments  of  the  trade  in  which  men  do  men's  work. 
One  may  begin  with  the  morning  newspapers.  This  work  is 
much  simpler  than  any  kind  of  book-work,  but  it  must  be 
done  with  greater  speed,-  and  in  unseasonable  hours.  It  re- 
quires the  expertness  that  is  only  acquired  'after  long  applica- 
tion, and  the  endurance  and  steadiness  of  a  fully  developed 
man.  It  cannot  be  done  by  girls  or  boys.  As  managed  in  this 
city,  it  is  truly  men's  work,  and  accordingly  receives  men's  pay. 

In  the  same  offices  where  book  compositors  earn  less  than 
$14  a  week,  are  the  regular  job  compositors  and  time  hands, 
who  are  paid  $20  a  week.  There  are  also  often  superior  work- 
men who  are  paid  from  $22  to  $25  a  week.  There  a,re  pressmen 
working  in  subordinate  positions  who  get  $25  to  $30  a  week. 
There  are  readers,  foremen  and  managers  who  are  paid  from 
$25  to  $50  per  week ;  even  higher  wages  have  been  paid. 
All  these  are  men  of  skill.  Their  right  to  good  wages  rests 
on  a  solid  basis.  They  do  not  complain  of  the  competition  of 
boys,  for  boys  cannot  do  their  work.  Their  wages  rise  stead- 
ily— not  by  strikes,  not  by  the  action  of  the  Union,  not  always 
through  their  own  request — often  through  the  recognition  of 
their  superior  value  by  the  employer,  or  by  the  competition 
of  a  rival  employer  for  their  services.  Poorly  paid  as  print- 
ing is,  there  is  no  trade  in  which  signal  ability  is  better 
appreciated  or  encouraged.  Over-full  as  the  city  is  with 
compositors,  there  is  even  now  in  the  dullest  season,  as  there 
always  has  been,  an  unsatisfied  demand  for  skillful  workmen. 
Superior  ability  always  commands  steady  employment  and 
higher  wages.  All  that  the  employer  asks  of  the  workman 
is,  that  he  shall  furnish  him  with  work  that  he  can  sell  at  a 
profit.  He  pays  him  accordingly. 

It  is  the  misfortune  of  the  piece  compositor  or  unskilled 
workman,  that  he  insists  on  furnishing  the  employer  with 
work  that  can  be  bought  from  boys  and  girls  at  lower  rates, 


42 

and  that  cannot  be  sold  to  profit.  Unlike  the  more  skillful 
time-hand,  who  works  in  cooperation  with  his  employer,  the 
unskilled  workman  wrongly  considers  it  to  his  interest  to 
work  independently.  His  rules  about  fat  and  lean,  about 
single  and  double  price,  about  piece  and  time  work,  must 
be  enforced  against  the  city  employer,  even  when  he  knows 
that  they  are  disregarded  to  such  an  extent  by  competing 
offices,  that  they  cannot  be  enforced  on  the  buyer.  The 
competition  of  unskilled  or  of  little  skilled  labor,  both  at 
home  and  abroad,  from  which  the  employer  suffers  as  well 
as  the  employed,  is  recognized  by  the  Union  only  to  be  made 
the  pretext  for  apprenticeship  laws  and  higher  prices.  The 
inability  of  the  employer,  by  reason  of  this  competition,  to 
pay  higher  wages,  is  made  the  necessity  for  eight  hours  and 
pay  for  standing-time. 

Are  these  wise  methods  of  dealing  with  the  evils  of  the 
trade?  Can  any  man  believe  that  they  will  increase  the 
amount  of  work  to  be  done  in  the  city,  or  that  they  will  even 
increase  the  year's  earnings  of  the  average  piece  compositor  ? 
Will  they  increase  the  ability  of  the  employer  to  pay  higher 
wages?  Will  they  not  goad  him  to  a  retaliation  that  will 
make  a  victory  worse  than  a  defeat  ? 

The  question  will  be  asked — If  these  new  rules  and  prices 
cannot  be  enforced,  how  then  can  the  condition  of  the  work- 
man be  improved  ?  The  remedy  is  largely  in  the  workman's 
own  hands.  It  is  not  in  the  power  of  the  employer,  nor  of 
the  Union,  to  help  him  out  of  his  difficulties  in  the  speedy 
manner  that  he  desires.  The  competition,  rural  and  foreign, 
from  which  he  suffers  was  not  made  by  the  Union,  nor  by  the 
city  employer;  nor  can  they,  nor  can  the  State,  abolish  it. 
Quackish  remedies,  like  high  prices,  or  eight  hours,  or 
apprenticeship  laws,  may  here  and  there  afford  a  temporary 
relief,  but  they  will  leave  the  trade  worse  than  they  found  it. 
In  spite  of  all  legislation,  there  is,  and  always  will  be,  com- 
petition. It  is  to  be  found  in  every  trade  and  profession ;  it 
is  quite  as  common  with  merchants  as  with  mechanics.  The 
printer  has  no  right  to  believe  that  he  should  be  exempt,  or 
that  he  can  conquer  the  evil  in  any  other  way  than  by  his 
own  individual  efforts. 


43 

If  a  man  finds  himself  in  a  trade  overrun  with  boys  and 
unskilled  workmen,  who  work  at  cheaper  rates,  his  only 
remedy  is  to  make  himself  superior  to  the  boys  in  skill — to 
qualify  himself  to  get  higher  wages.  If  he  desires  better 
prices,  he  must  sell  a  better  quality  of  labor.  It  commands 
a  better  price,  and  he  can  get  it  if  he  will  but  try  to  deserve 
it.  But  it  is  something  he  must  do  for  himself:  no  trade- 
union  can  do  it  for  him.  For  the  associated  efforts  of  trade- 
unions,  or  of  cooperative  societies,  are  of  little  value  unless 
they  are  based  on  individual  ability.  The  reform  that  the 
workman  desires  in  the  trade  must  begin  with  himself. 

To  the  so-called  modern  positive  philosopher,  who  sneers 
at  the  maxims  of  Ben  Franklin,  and  who  subscribes  to  the 
doctrines  of  Proudhon,  the  suggestion  of  personal  effort  may 
probably  be  as  distasteful  as  the  practice.  But  there  are 
young  Americans  in  this  city,  who  have  not  yet  outgrown 
respect  for  New  England  teachings,  who  may  listen  with 
better  grace  to  the  words  of  one  of  her  most  able  sons,*  with 
whose  counsels  this  essay  will  find  a  fitting  close,  and,  it  is 
hoped,  the  fullest  concurrence  of  the  reader. 

It  is  not  yet  given  us  to  see  how  this  great  result  is  to  come  about,  but 
we  can  rest  assured  that  it  will  not  come  about  through  any  bombardment 
of  rhetorical  epigrams,  nor  yet  through  the  noisy  resolutions  of  strikes  ;  it 
will  not  come  to  us  through  political  action,  nor  yet  through  the- passage 
of  multitudinous  laws  intended  to  regulate  the  hours  of  human  toil,  or  the 
value  of  human  labor,  or  the  demand  for  wealth ;  all  these  are  but  the 
barren  product  of  that  spirit  of  political  tampering  which  has  been 
described  as  the  odious  vice  of  restless  and  unstable  minds. 

Not  our  generation,  nor  many  succeeding  ones,  will  see  the  millenium 
created  by  an  act  of  Legislature,  and  ushered  into  being  by  the  club  of  a 
constable.  Far  otherwise ;  the  industrial  and  social  reorganization  essential 
to  our  future,  like  all  far-reaching  social  movements,  can  only  result  from 
the  combined  and  quiet  action  of  an  intelligent  and  determined  people, 
attending  in  their  own  way  to  their  daily  work,  and  coldly  disregarding 
all  short  cuts  and  royal  roads  to  their  promised  land.  It  must  be  the  result 
of  the  deep  ground-swell  of  a  steady  purpose,  and  will  never  originate  in 
the  frothy  eddies  of  an  idle  rhetoric. 

Germany  has  already  taught  us  one  lesson ;  England  is  teaching  us 
another.  Both  lessons  come  to  us  as  the  still,  small  voice  of  reason  and 
hope,  making  itself  heard  amid  the  noisy  and  profitless  tumult  of  passion. 

*  Charles  Francis  Adams,  Jr.    Oration  in  Boston,  July  4,  1872. 


44 

In  those  countries,  a  few  among  the  owners  of  labor  have  at  last  learned 
to  cooperate,  as  well  as  to  combine.  Are,  then,  the  laborers  of  Germany 
and  of  Great  Britain  -  those  whom  we  so  constantly  refer  to  in  our  vile 
political  jargon  as  ''the  pauper  labor  of  Europe  " — are  they  more  intelli- 
gent or  determined  than  those  of  Massachusetts  ?  Few  at  least  here 
would  care  to  maintain  it.  Are  they  better  endowed  with  means  with 
which  to  further  their  experiments  ?  I  cannot  say  ;  but  with  $160,000,000 
of  wealth  hoarded  in  the  savings  banks  of  the  Commonwealth,  our  people 
should  have  a  sufficiency  of  capital.  Yet  the  intelligent,  self-reliant, 
determined  children  of  Massachusetts  hang  backward  in  this  great  work, 
while  others  in  less  fortunate  lands  press  to  the  front.  Nevertheless,  the 
work  will  yet  be  accomplished,  and  what  the  savings  bank  now  is  to  the 
laboring  class  of  Massachusetts,  that  and  much  more  will  the  mill  and  the 
workshop  be  in  the  future.  Here,  and  here  alone,  lies  the  solution  of  the 
problem  ;  therein  is  the  ark  of  salvation. 

An  immutable  law,  wiser  than  any  recorded  upon  human  statute  book, 
has  decreed  that  every  people  may  in  course  of  time  regulate  its  own 
destiny.  No  human  power  external  to  themselves  can  assist  them  greatly, 
and  none  can  permanently  retard  them.  To  each  community  there  ulti- 
mately comes,  through  government  or  notwithstanding  government,  such 
an  industrial  and  social  system  as  they  themselves  shall  make.  The  future 
of  Massachusetts  rests  in  the  hands  of  the  mass  of  her  citizens,  who  now 
crowd  together  in  towns,  as  their  fathers  lived  apart  in  the  country.  It  is 
for  them  to  decide,  for  her  and  for  themselves,  whether  they  will  hereafter 
be  dependents  at  the  doors  of  corporations,  and  suppliants  at  the  bar  of 
the  Legislature,  or  whether  they  will  stand  up  in  the  honest  dignity  of 
independent  manhood,  and  emancipate  themselves.  Capital  is  selfish  and 
hard ;  indeed,  if  it  cease  to  be  so,  it  would  not  long  exist.  It  does  not 
deal  in  sentiment ;  by  the  law  of  its  being,  against  which  it  is  childish  to 
disclaim,  it  buys  where  it  can  buy  for  least,  and  sells  where  it  can  sell  for 
most ;  skill  and  muscle  are  but  one  portion  of  its  raw  material,  as  coal  and 
cotton  are  another.  It  can  be  effectively  approached  in  one  way,  and  in 
only  one.  To  deal  successfully  with  it,  labor  has  yet  to  prove  one  essen- 
tial vital  postulate — it  must  demonstrate  that  labor  is  more  profitable  to 
capital  as  a  partner  than  as  an  employe.  In  these  few  words  rests  the 
whole  issue  of  this  great  debate ;  but  this  it  can  never  do  till  it  tries  and 
fails,  and  fails  and  tries  again;  for  nothing  here  will  succeed  but  success. 
One  great,  cooperative  triumph,  the  result  of  its  own  unassisted  capital 
and  its  own  directing  brain,  would  thus  outweigh,  to  the  labor  of  Massa- 
chusetts, the  results  of  a  thousand  successful  strikes. 


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